Ageism

Posted by: TanyaW on: June 2, 2011

• In: Campaigning | Debate
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By Tanya W.

Travelling to and around Dublin I have seen many signs for the campaign “say no to ageism” yet from my knowledge and from what I have found out that’s only applies to people over 18. So the law around ageism is ageist.

I understand in some cases why this is the case as in for common sense and the protecting on young people when it comes to things like working after a certain time at night as they are still in school. Or a 9yr not being allowed a driving licence because of his age these things protect the young person but should there be a general right for young people not to be discriminated against because of there age.

There are 9 areas to which people are not allowed to discriminate under

• gender;
• civil status;
• family status;
• age;
• disability;
• race;
• sexual orientation;
• religious belief
• Membership of the Traveller Community.

Young people have rights under 8 of those but not when is comes to age discrimination.

I believe that young people have the right to be protected against be discriminated
against due to there age unfortunately this is not the case. In schools this is a big problem most the times on the way young people are spoken to, yet in some cases it is much more severe in the news this week it has been spoke about the case of there being toilets in student bathrooms in a school and when the students went and complained they were not listened to and were just dismissed. Yet when the parents (over 18’s) went and complain something was done about it. This is not fair and should not have been the case.

Another way young people are discriminated against is when it comes to services between the ages of about 12-18. When it comes to dental care there are no dentists that deal with young people between the ages of 12-16 and to get treatment care during this age you have to fight. When it comes to mental health services between roughly 16-18 there is no specific service as child services work up to 16 and adult work from 18. So if your 17 and need mental health services you normally get picked up by the adult service but that is not the right service for you.

Then you have the public transport side of things where you can be charged adult prices at the age of 12 sometimes when you are clearly not over 18 an adult. They wouldn’t charge a 5year old an adult fair. Shops often have security guards follow young people around shops just because of there age they would dare do it to a 30year old. Yet because everyone knows that young people and little or no rights they can get away with it.

Young people are discriminated against a lot almost daily because of there age. While I
think they should not be discriminating against older people on the grounds of age I don’t think they should be discriminating against young people either.