I. Background The Rights of Older People Older people are the fastest growing population group in the world. Abuses against older people are common, including discrimination, social and political exclusion, abuses in nursing facilities, neglect in humanitarian settings, and denial and rationing of health care. Most abuse goes undocumented and the perpetrators unpunished, as governments, UN agencies, and human rights actors have long ignored the rights of older people. Human Rights Watch is developing a new body of work to document the different kinds of human rights violations older people face; to advocate for better protections of their rights at the national and international level; and to identify potential gaps in human rights standards. This work will focus both on the effects of old age discrimination, or ageism, on people perceived to be older and human rights violations related to the aging process, such as frailty, chronic disease, or disability. For the first report in this series, we focused on the rights of widows; older women make up a significant majority of older people in the world and widows are often particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses. We chose Zimbabwe for this research because property grabbing from widows remains a serious problem, yet the new constitution provides real opportunities for progress and civil society groups are actively working to end the practice. Violations of the rights of widows are a significant problem in many countries around the world, and we call for a concerted effort to address the rights of widows, and older people generally, throughout the world. “YOU WILL GET NOTHING” 10