Corporate Responsibility and the Rights of Older Persons: O7J Submission to the UN Independent Expert on the Enjoyment of Human Rights by Older Persons
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October 7 Justice Without Borders submitted a comprehensive communication to the UN Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons on January 30th, 2026, focusing on the role of businesses in protecting — or failing to protect — the rights of older persons in situations of armed conflict.
The O7J Communication to the UN Independent Expert examines how corporate actors, including social media platforms, media organizations, and private weapons manufacturers, contributed to human rights violations committed against older civilians during and after the October 7, 2023 attacks.
The key focus is on how corporate and private entities can and must manage the risks of contributing to gross human rights violations, especially those committed against older persons, who constitute a vulnerable group, by developing effective mechanisms before, during, and after atrocities are committed. Identifying and recognizing the reality of contributing to these crimes is the first step in preventing and addressing harm.
Why the Rights of Older Persons Require an Intersectional Framework
Older persons face heightened vulnerability during armed conflict. Many experience reduced mobility, increased medical needs, disabilities, or limited access to information. They are also often disproportionately affected by both the immediate harm and its long-term consequences.
An 80-year-old woman who spent decades building her community, was taken hostage, and returned to find her friends and family murdered and her home destroyed experiences harm differently from a 20-year-old woman. While both may show extraordinary resilience and courage, the younger woman may still believe she can rebuild her life and community.
The older woman, by contrast, may have lost in a single day the relationships, routines, and sense of belonging built over a lifetime. After earning the privilege of relying on her community in old age, she now faces displacement, isolation, and limited prospects of rebuilding what was lost. These vulnerabilities are further compounded by factors such as gender, immobility, disability and medical needs, digital illiteracy and lack of access to information.
Despite these risks, international legal frameworks addressing corporate responsibility rarely incorporate age-specific protections. While general human rights instruments protect rights such as life, dignity, and privacy, they often fail to address the particular vulnerabilities faced by older persons.
Our submission highlights the urgent need for age-sensitive corporate responsibility frameworks within the field of business and human rights.
The Context: October 7 and Its Impact on Older Civilians
The attacks of October 7, 2023 involved widespread violence against civilians, including murder, hostage-taking, torture, and other atrocities that may constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and potentially genocide.
Older civilians were disproportionately affected. Among the victims were elderly hostages and individuals in their seventies and eighties who were killed or abused during captivity. Of the more than 1,200 people murdered, approximately 180 were over the age of 60, including 25 people aged 80 and above. Of the 251 hostages taken, more than 20% were over the age of 65. Some were in their eighties, and at least five were murdered in captivity.
Many older victims lived in kibbutzim that were directly targeted during the attacks. Their age, limited mobility, and medical needs made them particularly vulnerable. In kibbutzim such as Be’eri and Nir Oz, nearly half of the murdered civilians were over the age of 65, highlighting the heightened vulnerabilities older persons face in emergencies and armed conflict, which require an intersectional understanding.
Corporate Actors and Human Rights Failures
Our submission highlights key sectors in which corporate failures contributed to gross human rights violations and harm affecting older persons. In fact, existing human rights due diligence mechanisms failed the reality test. Violations were committed, corporate entities bear responsibility, and their risk-management tools failed and must be improved, while those responsible must also be held accountable so that victims can receive effective remedies.
📱Social Media Platforms
Digital platforms were used to disseminate violent propaganda and livestream atrocities during and after the attacks. There is ample data showing that thousands of accounts were opened weeks before the October 7 “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack and disseminated identical hate speech, bigotry, antisemitism, incitement to genocide, and acts of extreme violence constituting serious international crimes, including against older women and men.
In several documented cases, footage of elderly civilians being abducted, abused, or killed was circulated widely online. In one instance, the murder of a 74-year-old woman was livestreamed on her own social media account.
The continued availability and circulation of such content caused severe psychological harm to victims’ families and communities.
These cases demonstrate that platforms failed to implement adequate existing human rights safeguards reflecting their stated policies, including moderation systems and crisis-response mechanisms, particularly in relation to vulnerable users such as older persons, children, and other vulnerable groups.
🗞 News Agencies and Media Responsibility
“Terrorist journalists” (members of terrorist organizations disguised as journalists—although they openly displayed their affiliation prior to, during, and after the attacks) and media organizations also played a controversial role in actively contributing to the commission of crimes by documenting and distributing images of atrocities. In these cases, images of elderly hostages or victims were disseminated globally without consent while those individuals were in situations of extreme vulnerability.
The broad dissemination of such content across media outlets, newspapers, and social media formed part of an explicit plan and policy of the architects of the attacks, implemented by militias on the ground. As an element of the crimes and the attacks, the manner in which the content was disseminated contributed to the spread of terror and the infliction of mental torture and inhuman and degrading treatment on victims, their families, and communities.
The submission stresses that media organizations must ensure that reporting does not cross the line into facilitating violence or amplifying harm.
🏭 Weapons Manufacturers
The attacks also involved weapons and technologies supplied through global supply chains. These included conventional arms and dual-use technologies such as drones and surveillance tools, RPGs, Russian and Iranian weapons, and other military equipment.
Businesses involved in the manufacture, transfer, or supply of such technologies have a responsibility to conduct human rights due diligence and assess the risk that their products may be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law.
Failures to properly assess these risks enable grave harm to civilian populations, including older persons.
Key Legal Gap Identified
While the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) require companies to prevent and address human rights abuses linked to their activities, they do not provide specific guidance regarding the protection of older persons.
This lack of age-sensitive standards creates a gap in accountability and protection.
The October 7 attacks demonstrate how this gap can lead to the commission of the most heinous crimes when companies fail to anticipate or mitigate risks beforehand, fail to respond during their commission, and fail to address violations effectively, thereby affecting vulnerable populations.
Our Recommendations
To address these gaps, the submission proposes several key measures:
Crisis response by digital platforms: Social media companies should implement rapid crisis protocols to remove harmful content and prevent the amplification of material that harms vulnerable populations, including older persons.
Accountability and remedies: Platforms and media organizations must establish mechanisms to sanction harmful activity, provide remedies to victims, and implement reforms to prevent similar violations.
Responsible weapons supply chains: Weapons manufacturers and technology providers should suspend or restrict transfers where there is a clear risk that their products may be used to commit abuses against civilians.
Ethical media standards: News organizations must ensure that journalists do not coordinate with armed groups or contribute to the spread of terror or human rights violations.
Stronger international protections: The forthcoming UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons should explicitly address the responsibilities of businesses and corporate actors, particularly in conflict settings.
Looking Forward
The experience of older civilians following October 7 demonstrates how corporate practices across technology, media, and defense industries can intersect with serious human rights violations.
Protecting older persons requires a renewed focus on age-sensitive corporate responsibility, stronger oversight of business conduct, and effective accountability mechanisms.
Our submission calls on the UN to center the rights, dignity, and safety of older persons within the global business and human rights agenda, including its implementation frameworks.
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