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Criminal Victimization of The Elderly: a Southern Nigeria Experience

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Abstract

Criminal victimization of the aged through abuse and neglect is a social phenomenon that is infrequently discussed in Nigeria despite its alarming prevalence, incidence and grave social implications. This study therefore examined the ways elders are abused in Nigeria. The study utilized the situational model theory to explain the topic under investigation. The design was exploratory and involved the use of qualitative method of data collection. Benin, as a metropolitan city and capital of Edo state, Nigeria was used as the study location, while forty (40) elders above the age of sixty five (65) years were purposively selected from the study population of all retired elders who belong to the National Union of Pensioners, Edo state branch. The study found that criminal victimization of the elderly through abuse and neglect occur in different ways ranging from physical, psychological, sexual, financial, institutional abuses and neglect and that these abuses exist or occur in Benin City. There is therefore the need for government and family members to give proper attention to elders by enhancing their quality of life.

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Correspondence to Emmanuel Imuetinyan Obarisiagbon.

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Conflict of Interest

I declare that there is no conflict of interest in relation to this research work.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was duly obtained from all individual participants included in the study before the commencement of the interviews\ study.

Ethical Treatment of Experimental Subjects (Animal and Human)

“All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.”

All ethical standards were duly complied with.

I further declare that no financial support of any kind was received before, during and after this research work; as well as no personal relationship with the respondents.

I also declare that this is an original research work; it has not been published before and is not under consideration for publication in any other journal elsewhere.

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Obarisiagbon, E.I. Criminal Victimization of The Elderly: a Southern Nigeria Experience. Ageing Int 44, 189–201 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-019-9345-2

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