President of OPPA, Ivo Valdes, says that the opinion of the elderly is often disregarded in Aruba. “On top of that, we are practicing ageism, which is the discrimination against the elderly simply for being old.”
During the National Forum for the Elderly at the Hilton Aruba this past week, we got to speak to Valdes about this subject. He says that the discrimination is very evident in traffic, for example. Oftentimes, the elderly drivers go at a very slow pace on the road. Younger drivers consider this to be a disturbance. In other cases, when men and women talk about putting their elderly parents into a care facility, despite their parent’s protests. Often, their opinions are disregarded.
