Retired teachers use International Day of Older Persons to protest.

Agadir24

The Moroccan Education Retirees Union has decided to take advantage of the International Day of Older Persons, which falls on Tuesday, October 1, to protest the government and the Ministry of National Education’s lack of response to the union’s demands, and to demand that the government respond quickly and positively to its demands.

The union affiliated with the National Union of Education – Democratic Orientation criticized what it called the appalling decline in the purchasing power of the Moroccan people in general due to the unprecedented high prices of most basic and consumer goods, the high rates of poverty and unemployment, and the comprehensive deterioration of all public services. It also criticized the continued marginalization of retirees and pensioners and the freezing of their pensions, which it considered did not meet the minimum standards of decent living for them and their families.

The Retirees Union called for “stopping tax deductions from pensions,” holding “the Moroccan state responsible for ensuring the quality of social services for retirees and pensioners, as stipulated in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” stressing in the same context “the right of retirees and pensioners to increase pensions, in a manner consistent with “ensuring a decent life and social justice and removing all forms of marginalization and exclusion from this category.”

The education retirees considered that “the outcomes of the central social dialogue are disappointing and constitute discriminatory exclusion against retirees and pensioners who were deprived of any increase despite the unprecedented high prices of all materials and the Moroccan state’s abandonment of their social responsibilities by liquidating the compensation fund and lifting support for basic materials.”

On December 14, 1990, the United Nations declared the International Day of Older Persons to be observed on October 1 of each year, with the aim of raising awareness of the problems facing older persons, reflecting on how to ensure the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms by older persons, and engaging the masses on a large scale for human rights at all stages of life. October 1 is considered a day of protest, raising demands and defending them.