COSTA RICA: Women Ageing Alone, Easy Prey to
Looting
By Maricel Sequeira
SAN JOSÉ (IPS) - Though América
Herrera may not ever know it, she has become
the poster child for a growing practice in
Costa Rica, which experts define as
financial or economic abuse of the elderly.
The terms used to describe this practice do
not fully convey the perversity behind it.
Formally it is referred to as stripping the
elderly of their assets, but what it boils
down to is a caregiver, friend or relative
fooling an older person in order to
illegally use or misappropriate their
financial assets. In short, abusing a
senior’s trust to raid their bank accounts
or loot their valuables and property.
The First Report on the State of Elderly
Adults, prepared in 2008 by the Centre for
Population Studies of the University of
Costa Rica, revealed that this Central
American nation has an estimated 300,000
senior citizens, representing six percent of
the population.
While men 65 and older represent 5.7 percent
of the total male population, women in that
age range represent 6.7 percent of the
female population.
One major difference between men and women
over the age of 65 is that there are many
more widows than widowers, given that women
have a life expectancy five years longer
than men.
In this country that ranks second in Latin
America - after Chile - in terms of quality
of life, according to an index drawn up by
the Economist Intelligence Unit, women are
thus living longer, but often alone.
And because they are alone, they are
vulnerable to neglect and become easy
targets for financial abuse. Or perhaps the
neglect and financial exploitation they are
victims of ultimately results in their
isolation. The National Council for the
Elderly (CONAPAM), a state agency, received
1,200 reports in 2008 and 600 in the first
semester of 2009 for violation or abuse of
basic rights.
Women are the leading victims. According to
data for the first four months of this year,
254 women have suffered physical,
psychological or sexual abuse, abandonment,
institutional neglect, abject poverty or
financial abuse.
"At CONAPAM, we receive the complaints and
counsel relatives and acquaintances, but
only a few cases have been taken to court,"
Edgar Muñoz, who heads CONAPAM’s service to
beneficiaries division together with two
social workers, told IPS.
A victim of plunder
América Herrera was one of the few whose
cases will make it to trial. Muñoz recounts
how "taking advantage of her dementia and
the neglect she lived in, (Herrera) was
scammed into signing a document handing over
a 40,000-square-metre property that was
registered in her name."
"What can I tell you!" Herrera replied at
the nursing home where she now lives, when
asked by IPS how she was doing. But this
70-year-old woman from southern Costa Rica,
who looks ten or 20 year older than she is,
didn’t elaborate.
She just narrowed her eyes, wiped away a
tear that was a mere reflex devoid of
feeling, and sank into a deep silence.
Sitting in her wheelchair, freshly bathed,
Herrera is oblivious to the stranger by her
side who pats her hands gently. She looks at
nothing and no one as she clasps her frail
hands together and rests them on her lap,
lost in the haze of a mind overcome by
Alzheimer’s.
The people who took away the only thing she
owned "were people she knew from the town"
where her property was located, some 130
kilometres from San José. They took
advantage of her frailty, Zulema Villalba,
the CONAPAM lawyer who brought the case to
court, told IPS.
And she wasn’t the only victim. "Her three
siblings, aged 60 to 84, who also suffer
from some degree of dementia or have trouble
getting around on their own or taking care
of themselves, now depend on charity to get
by," the lawyer said as she explained that
the legal proceedings were still in the
preliminary stages.
According to the report on the state of the
elderly, Costa Rica’s population is ageing
fast, with the latest figures indicating an
average life expectancy slightly above 79,
which in the case of women is almost as high
as 82, dropping to less than 77 in men.
Women’s greater longevity combines with
other factors to make them more vulnerable:
the fact that more of them are widowed, and
often their poor health or emotional
frailty.
"We see more women than men falling victim
to financial abuse," a phenomenon that is on
the rise, and Herrera’s is just one case
that has become public and made it to court,
Villalba said.
She also pointed out that there are legal
instruments available to protect the
elderly, but said they fall short.
Article 61 of the Umbrella Act for the
Protection of Older Persons covers rights
abuses or crimes committed against
individuals, and enables victims to request
the annulment of any legal document they
were tricked into signing. This provision
can help seniors protect their property, but
they must be made aware of it, and it needs
to be enforced.
"Financial violence or abuse is also
committed at the state level," Villalba
denounced.
"This happens in the Ministry of Labour,
where widows have to wait as long as six or
seven years for their pension to come
through," she said, and because they often
have no other form of income, "they depend
on what their children can give them and
often have to move in with a relative.
"Some will die without having ever received
the benefits they are entitled to. Right now
there’s a case being investigated of a woman
who had to make trip after trip (to the
ministry) to request her pension, and she
was always turned down, until on one of
those trips she died," Villalba said.
María de los Ángeles Solís, assistant
director at the National Geriatrics and
Gerontology Hospital in San José, also says
that figures indicate that financial abuse
affects women more often than men.
Of the 117 complaints received by her
hospital in 2007, 68 were from women. A
similar trend occurred in 2008 and the first
half of 2009.
"It’s shameful, and the older they are, the
more dependant they become and the greater
the abuse they suffer," Solís told IPS.
"Because they’re widowed and feel vulnerable
and defenceless, or because they’re
uneducated, many women think that if they
sign their properties, savings and pension
over to somebody else - a relative or
someone they know - that will guarantee
they’ll be taken care of and won’t be put in
a home," she explained.
Another element that fuels financial abuse
is poverty in the family. The University of
Costa Rica study found that 16.7 percent of
all households are living below the poverty
line. But for households with an elderly
member that proportion climbs up to 21.4
percent.
Researchers found that 100,000 of the 1.1
million families in Costa Rica support
themselves with the pensions and savings of
their elderly members.
Elderly men and women usually "have a
pension and some continue working after the
age of 65. In general, 17 percent of this
population is still connected to the
workforce. They have as many as three
sources of income. It’s not unusual for them
to become the petty cash box for their
children and grandchildren," Luis Rosero,
the report’s lead researcher, told IPS.
"At about 55, income becomes insufficient to
meet consumption needs. By this age, people
often have kids in college and have more
expenses to face up to. That’s where elderly
people come into the picture and take on
part of the family budget," researcher
Andrea Collado said.
For Eugenia Carvajal, head of legislative
bills at the National Women’s Institute,
"financial abuse committed against the
elderly is more than just a figure, it’s a
reality."
"How many cases are there that never come to
light and remain hidden in the home?"
Carvajal asked, before underlining that the
state has the obligation of providing
elderly women with the "necessary
instruments to help them in this stage, so
that they can feel safe."
"We need to empower them," the gender agency
officer told IPS.
But Carvajal says that "we cannot lose sight
of the fact that these situations are
evidencing a breakdown in Costa Rican
society."
"This is a very delicate issue, and neither
society nor the authorities are prepared to
understand this stage of life. It’s an
attitude problem. We think growing old is
something that happens to somebody else, but
it’s a gradual process that happens to all
of us," she said. |
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