Latin America Herald Tribube
Ninety-one percent of Honduras’ 700,000 residents over the age of 60 have no income, the National Association of Elderly Adults, or ANAM, said Monday. Only 5 percent in that age group have retirement benefits and the remaining 4 percent are cared for by family members, ANAM President Julio Torres told reporters.
Honduras currently has 8.2 million inhabitants, of whom 8.5 percent are over 60.
At a demonstration in Tegucigalpa, hundreds of ANAM members demanded that President Porfirio Lobo’s administration create “policies and programs” that benefit the older Honduran".
“We’ll keep fighting for a better quality of life for older citizens,” said Mr. Torres, who last Friday took part in the presentation of the report “Aging in the 21st Century” by the United Nations Population Fund. According to the report, by the year 2050 the population of people over 60 will have grown to 2 billion worldwide.
“If there’s no pension to cover their basic necessities and they have no access to medical services to treat their illnesses, their quality of life will deteriorate and death will come sooner,” UN official Hugo Gonzalez told Efe.
Average life expectancy is 78 years in developed countries and 73 years in Honduras.
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