The Legal Aspects of Social Safety of Senior Citizens in Bangladesh

This paper explores the vulnerability and sufferings of the old-age people of Bangladesh in respect to health care, economic, and social protections. The article presents an analytical and conceptual approach to the socio-economic status of old-aged people in Bangladesh while focusing on the global context. The numbers of old-aged persons are increasing in the last years due to decreasing mortality rate and increasing life expectancy of the people as a result of improvement of the health sector in Bangladesh. Older persons need food with nutrient, proper and regular healthcare, adequate and comfortable living place, access to law, if necessary, proper recreation and more significantly the company of others which is very crucial in old age. Development of the so-called nucleus family in today‟s modern society, which means a family staying away from their parents, put the aged persons in very miserable conditions in our society. The right to enjoyment of the basic rights by the elderly people is recognized by the Constitution of the People‟s Republic of Bangladesh. This paper focuses on analyzing the National Policy and legal framework for upholding and protecting the rights, socio-economic development, and welfare concerns of elderly people in Bangladesh. There is an endeavor to explore the challenges which are standing as obstacles in ensuring the protection of the rights of old-age people and the development of their socio-economic condition in Bangladesh. Research methods used in this paper are documentation, analytical, comparative, and logical method. Authors tried to show that senior citizen of the society should get legal and moral protection from the family, society, and the state.