Of 15 June: When our proverbs respect age but our actions fall short, By Margaret Uddin Ojeahere

We cannot continue to claim moral authority on respect for elders while allowing them to suffer in silence. If we want to preserve the cultural pride we hold so dearly, then confronting elder abuse is not optional, it is urgent. Respect must move from proverb to practice, from performance to protection, from words to action.

“World Elder Abuse Awareness Day” is observed every year on 15 June. It is the only United Nations Day dedicated to exposing the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of older people, a crisis that remains largely hidden, even as it affects millions of households around the world. In 2026, it presents fresh opportunities for communities, advocates, care providers and policymakers to confront a problem that grows more urgent each year, not just on 15th June, but throughout the entire year. Afterall, elder abuse does not begin or end on a single day. Elder abuse refers to any single or repeated action, or the failure to act that causes harm or distress to an older person, particularly within a relationship where they should feel safe and able to trust the other person.

According to the World Health Organization, around one in six people aged 60 or over experienced some form of abuse in community settings during the previous year. The numbers climb even higher in institutional environments such as nursing homes and long-term care facilities, where some surveys show two in three staff members admitting to abusive behaviour. A study in parts of Nigeria, involving participants mostly in their early seventies, found that nearly eight out of every ten older adults had experienced some form of abuse. Elder abuse can take many forms such as physical, emotional, sexual, financial, digital as well as neglect and abandonment. Regardless of the form, the impact of harm caused by elder abuse is profound with survivors facing higher rates of depression, hospitalisation, and premature death. Aside from the grimmest consequence, the lesser harms and its quiet impacts are often missed or ignored. With the global population of older adults expected to double to two billion by 2050, the urgency of prevention could not be more stark.

If reports from social media and recent findings are anything to go by, then the rise of elder abuse in Africa, despite a cultural identity that is deeply tied to the belief that insulting an elder is unthinkable, reveals a painful contradiction. We recite proverbs about respecting grey hair, but in practice, older adults are increasingly facing ridicule, neglect, exploitation, and emotional harm. From rural villages to classrooms filled with young learners, the very people we claim to honour are too often dismissed as burdens, mocked for their limitations, or stripped of their dignity in the name of changing times and shifting views.

Elder abuse does not always take the overt form of abandoning older adults, inflicting physical harm because they have been accused of being witches or wizards, or subjecting them to degrading treatment such as locking them in rooms or confinement in unhygienic conditions. While these extreme cases do occur and often make headlines, they represent only one end of a much broader spectrum. Elder abuse can also take quieter, more insidious forms, so subtle that they are easily dismissed as “You don’t know Mama/Papa”, “normal behaviour” or “family matters.” It may be the constant belittling of an older person’s opinions, the impatience that silences their voice, the financial decisions made without their consent, or the slow erosion of their independence under the guise of helping. This story lays bare the contradiction at the heart of our cultural claims.

Mama Tala used to be the first voice heard at dawn, sweeping the compound and humming the same hymn her mother taught her. Children once gathered around her for stories, folklores, tales of migration, harvests, and the old festivals that shaped the community. But now, when she steps outside, the children mimic her slow shuffle. Teenagers roll their eyes when she speaks. Last month, her nephew took control of her meagre stipend, insisting he would manage it better. He now gives her money only when he feels like it. When she protested, he told her she was too old to understand how things work in today’s realities. No one in the family house corrected him, no one intervened. After all, they argued that if her biological children had wanted things to be different, they would have stayed in Nigeria instead of leaving things to be managed from abroad or by relatives while she still has living children… So, Mama Tala sits quietly on her wooden stool, watching a society that claims to revere elders slowly erase her dignity in plain sight.

This story depicts what elder abuse may look like. It is not always loud, not always violent, but deeply wounding. It is the unpaid pension, the ignored medical need, the mocking laughter, the refusal to listen, the isolation in a back room, the quiet belief that an older…