Older women are named in every framework — elder abuse plans, aged care policy, and national plans on violence against women — but none of those frameworks treats them as a distinct group with distinct needs. Last week, AAWAA took part in an expert online consultation convened by Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, to help inform her forthcoming report to the UN General Assembly on violence against older women.
In April 2026, AAWAA provided a written submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, who is currently preparing a report to the UN General Assembly on violence against older women. We were subsequently invited to participate in an expert online consultation convened to inform that report. The issues we raised — the absence of any dedicated national strategy anywhere in the world, the systematic erasure of older women from the policy categories meant to protect them, and the specific failures of Australian law and data infrastructure — are central to why older women remain among the least protected cohorts in any violence prevention framework.
On definition: structural position, not subjective identity
We argued that no single chronological threshold captures the population requiring protection. In Australia alone, the threshold varies from 55-plus in housing and homelessness research to 65-plus in aged care eligibility and 67 for age pension purposes, each reflecting a different analytical purpose. We recommended a functional definition: ‘older women’ are those whose structural vulnerability is compounded by the intersection of sex-based disadvantage accumulated over a lifetime with age-related care dependency, financial dependence, or housing insecurity.
We also addressed the question of self-concept. While it matters enormously how a woman sees herself — and the experience of ageing can profoundly affect that — self-concept does not alter structural vulnerability. A woman of 73 who does not think of herself as ‘old’ is still subject to the age pension system, still carries the superannuation gap accumulated over her lifetime, and still has no enforceable right to female-only intimate care if she enters aged care. The definition must serve the policy, not the individual’s self-perception. Resistance to the label is itself a documented barrier to disclosure — which is a reason to invest in better outreach and service design, not a reason to abandon the category.
We were clear as well about a problem that is rarely named: the consistent elision of older women into sex-neutral categories. When older women are subsumed into ‘older persons’, ‘vulnerable adults’, or ‘people experiencing elder abuse’, the sex of the victim and the sex of the perpetrator both disappear from policy language, data collection, and accountability frameworks. No country currently has a dedicated strategy on violence against older women. Older women fall between every plan.
On best practices: illustrative, not ideal
We offered Australian examples: the NSW Ageing and Disability Commission, which regularly publishes sex-disaggregated data showing that 66% of reports involve older women; the 2021 National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study, the most comprehensive yet conducted in Australia; and a proposed superannuation death benefits reform that, if legislated, would prohibit perpetrators of domestic violence from accessing their victims’ superannuation — as illustrative of what more sex-informed policy infrastructure can look like, while being honest about their limitations.
We also introduced a concept we believe is largely absent from the international literature: ‘administrative violence’, where state agencies themselves inflict harm through systemic failure. The 2026 Australian National Audit Office audit of the age pension exposed $5 billion in incorrect payments and maximum processing times of 1,527 calendar days. AAWAA’s qualitative evidence to that inquiry documents the accompanying pattern of dismissal, intrusive questioning, and repeated documentation demands experienced by women recipients. None of this is sex-disaggregated. None of it is classified as a form of harm. We submitted that the Special Rapporteur’s report is an opportunity to introduce this concept into the international framework.
On recommendations
Our recommendations covered prevention (training aged care workers in DV and financial abuse identification; embedding older women as a distinct cohort in primary prevention frameworks; naming male perpetrators in government communications), protection (closing the dementia exemption in mandatory reporting; establishing specialist older women’s DV services; reforming enduring power of attorney frameworks; prohibiting perpetrators from accessing superannuation death benefits; establishing a statutory right to female-only intimate care in aged care), and state policy (mandating sex-disaggregated data; prohibiting sex self-identification policies from corrupting administrative datasets; requiring elder abuse prevalence studies to include residential settings; developing a dedicated national strategy).
That last point is the one we would most like to see in the final report. No country has a dedicated national strategy on violence against older women. A recommendation that all member states develop one — standalone, funded, with accountability mechanisms and regular review — would be a concrete and achievable outcome from this process.
We have provided the UN SRVAWG with a follow-up submission (below), which has been accepted.