The National Senior Citizens Centre (NSCC) is to partner with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to promote the dignity of senior citizens and tackle related abuses against them.

In a statement released on Saturday, the NSCC spokesperson Omini Oden said the resolution was the outcome of a closed-door meeting by the centre and the commission at the NHRC headquarters in Abuja.

According to him, the centre’s collaboration with NHRC, as one of the key human rights redress and remedy institutions in the country, is strategic to stem the abuse of elders at all levels.

He quoted the Director-General of NSCC, Emem Omokaro, as saying that the advocacy mission to the commission was to introduce the “Anti-elder Abuse Community Response Squad” initiative.

“When operational, the squad will leverage on the spread of the commission to receive complaints on elder abuse based human rights violations and provide speedy and adequate redress.

“The Anti-Elder Abuse Community Response Squad shall be community-based and will be equipped for elder abuse prevention, response and remedy in all its forms including legal representation.

“We appeal for the institutionalisation of a joint technical working group that will put the mechanism in place for the operationalisation.

“Creation of NHRC-NSCC focal officer, capacity building and strategic operation procedure within Memorandum of Understanding,” Ms Omokaro said.

The Executive Secretary of NHRC, Tony Ojukwu, said that there would be a reconstruction of people’s mindset to begin to see issues of older persons from the standpoint of human rights when the centre is in place.

“There will be unfettered access and cooperation between the commission and the centre towards achieving the core mandate bothering on human rights abuse,” Mr Ojukwu said.