With June 15 marking Elder Abuse Awareness Day, campaigns are taking place across the territory and across the globe calling for an end to silence.
Karen Willy, executive director of the Seniors’ Society has emphasized the importance of talking about elder abuse, a critical issue that is too often overlooked.
“Abuse, whether it’s abuse of a spouse or an Elder, abuse is quite often silent,” said Willy.
“It’s one of the things that we have to do is break that silence and start talking about it.”
Willy explained that abuse can happen across different settings, from the home to hospitals as well as long term care facilities. No matter what setting the abuse takes place, it is often overlooked and surrounded by silence. For one, older adults experiencing the abuse are often hesitant to openly acknowledge their situation.
“If you ask them directly, they’re likely going to shut down unless they’re ready to share. So you ask questions like are you okay? And they have the choice then to tell you what’s going on and sometimes they don’t want to and that’s fair that’s a choice,” said Willy.
“When somebody’s abused, you take away their choice, so if you are trying to help them by taking away, their choice is not the way to do it. You might say, is there a way I can help you? You might work towards a safety plan for that person. So if they’re in a situation where they’re being abused and they call you and they have a safety word and they give you that safety word, then you have a plan of action. There are many ways to really support people in this situation. It’s just knowing where they are at.”
One way to do that is by making sure communities across N.W.T. have people who are trained to deliver Elder abuse awareness “to start the conversations,” explained Willy.
“The Seniors’ Society has always been the first place people go out, but we don’t know the culture of every community and every community is different. So if we train people from the communities, they know their communities. They know their people and they’re able to do Elder abuse awareness, workshops that meet the needs of the people.”
The organization runs workshops and training across communities of the North, to help them deliver Elder abuse awareness. The initiative began from collaborative work between the NWT Senior Society and the NWT Network for the Prevention of Abuse of Older Adults.
The rate of senior violent victimization increased 22 per cent in Canada between 2010 and 2020 according to crime statistics collected by the federal justice department.
Data collected by the U.N shows that one in six Elders are abused. At the same time this research also shows that elder abuse is “underreported globally.”
As Willy pointed out, there is little if any information available in the territory or the country that looks at how big the problem really is.
“We don’t know how big the problem is across Canada or across the NWT,” said Willy.
According to the federal justice department, the prevalence of crimes against older adults in the country are generally unknown. A national stats Canada survey was last dedicated to the issue back in 2009, more than 15 years ago, but the federal justice department reported that according to their criteria, the last major national study took place back in 1990.
In the North, even less resources have been made available to understand how older adults in Northern regions are affected, but another issue has to do with confidentiality. If fewer than five people at a long term care facility report abuse, it is illegal to collect the data because of confidentiality and protecting the person’s identity, explained Willy.
“What we do know, because the NWT Senior Society runs the senior information line is that there is abuse in the North,” she emphasized.
As older adults age, they face higher risks of abuse and often have fewer resources with which to respond.
In cases of physical abuse or financial abuse, older adults have a right to report to police. When it comes to other forms of abuse, there is a serious lack of options available to help older adults.
“There’s very few resources available to seniors who are being abused, beyond that. There’s the Protection Against Family Violence Act. So if somebody in their home is actively abusing them and they have the lease or the deed in their name, they can apply for a protection order through the Family Violence Prevention Act,” said Willy.
Some elders choose to leave their home but there may not be places for them to turn, explained Willy.
“Elderly women who are in an abusive situation in their home, can go to a family violence shelter but there’s no other real remedies at this point and that’s something that we need to consider as a society.”
