Survey of old women in Levice, Slovakia - Top Five Older Women’s Issues

Survey of old women in Levice, Slovakia - International Women’s Day- Top Five Older Women’s Issues

In honour of International Women’s Day, Slovak students involved in the eTwinning project „Forum of Generations @ School“, went to the downtown of Levice to meet older women on 8th March 2012. Students congratulated these women with International Women´s Day and did a short survey about older women´s issues. We bring you the top five concerns for older women. We met 25 women and asked them 5 questions concerning top 5 women´s issues. Here are the results of our survey:

1. Women and Poverty

The feminization of poverty occurs in all countries, as mass poverty in many countries. The risk of falling into poverty is greater for women than for men, particularly in old age where social security is based on the principle of continuous remunerated employment. Adequate safety nets must be established and state-based and community based support systems implemented in order to ensure that men and women are on equal footing. All 25 women agreed that there are more old women than old men suffering of poverty, because their retirement rents are much Loir then men´s. Especially old women who are widowers have really difficult situation, many times, TIR children have to hepl them with money a nd i tis really sad.

2. Education and Training of Women

The low educational level of older women challenges their full participation in the public and political life of the country. The goal of equal access to education must be advanced by taking measures to eliminate discrimination in education at all levels on the basis of gender, race, language, religion, national origin, age or disability, or any other form of discrimination, and as appropriate, consider establishing procedures to address grievances. We asked the old women if they have the ambition to study and educate themselves now when they are retired. From 25 asked women 20 said that the read books, go to libraries, but they do not feel any deficite in education. One of these women attend University of Third age and 4 went to a PC course organized by secondary schools and a townhall.

3. Women and Health

Postmenopausal conditions and diseases tend to be neglected in research, academic studies, public policy, and service provision. While women tend to outlive men in terms of life expectancy women’s quality of life is in danger of being compromised without specific understanding of the older women’s physical, functional and mental health needs. Health care service provision must be affordable, appropriate and accessible especially for those who live in rural areas. The inter-relationship of ageing and disability among all women needs particular attention. The long-term health prospects of women are influenced by changes at menopause, which, in combination with lifelong conditions, poor nutrition and lack of physical activity, may increase the risk of disabilities. The old ladies on the question if they had any health problems recently answered they did. Half of the asked women had an operation and all of them regularly see doctors. They have problems with the heart, breathing and back and women´s diseases.

4. Violence Against Women

Older women are particularly vulnerable to physical, sexual, and psychological harm because of their economic and physical dependency both within the family and in society in general. This abuse often remains hidden and is therefore ignored. Improved gender-disaggregated and age-specific data on victims and perpetrators of all forms of violence against women of all ages must be developed. Our old women respondents said they did not have any problems with home violence but half of them declared they know women who suffer or suffered of home violence

5. Human Rights of Women

The World Conference on Human Rights (1993) reaffirmed that the human rights of women throughout the life cycle are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The gap between the existence of legal rights and their effective enjoyment derives from a lack of commitment by governments to promoting and protecting those rights and the failure of governments to inform women and men alike about them. All of the women said that they thought the women´s rights are not kept in the world. There are differences between men and women of all ages, not only at work, the job positions but also in political life and many other scenes