Chañaral and other municipalities, 2021) and (iii) a “reinforced standard of expeditiousness”
for older persons (National Federation of Maritime and Port Workers [FEMAPOR], 2022). To
these may be added the considerations in the judgment on the payment of a remuneration
and wages as an integral part of the right to work and that, in the case of older persons, the
lack or improper payment thereof is accentuated with special intensity. All these elements are
of vital importance for the region and, in general, for the inter-American public order.
35.
These efforts that have been constructed jurisprudentially have served to strengthen
the rights of older persons in the inter-American system and, generally, to place in evidence
the different realities that confront these persons as a differentiated group who, at this stage
of their lives, experience in a special manner violations to their human rights. The interAmerican jurisprudence is now making visible what for many years remained vague in the
inter-American system: the rights of older persons as an especially vulnerable group.
36.
This visibility is fundamentally important in Latin America and the Caribbean since, of
its around 654 million inhabitants, thirteen percent are older than 60 years of age, a
percentage that is projected to rise to twenty-five percent in 2050. As ECLAC has expressed,
older persons are among the most vulnerable groups and they, unfortunately, have suffered
from the pandemic and they continue suffering direct consequences in their quality of life and
they confront great challenges in achieving their rights. 50
Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor Poisot
Judge
Pablo Saavedra Alessandri
Registrar
50
Cf. ECLAC, Challenges for the protection of older persons and their rights during the COVID-19 pandemic,
December 2020, Available at:
https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/46487/1/S2000723_es.pdf
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