For the elderly of Latvia, sales restrictions are comparable to torture

The sales bans imposed by the government must be seen as inhuman treatment of the most vulnerable part of Latvia's population - single elderly people. Such government policies are tantamount to torture.

As you know, the current sales restrictions, which are supposed to reduce the spread of Covid, prohibit the retail purchase of even winter boots if the old ones broke. Representatives of the Latvian government and epidemiologists consider the bans to be proportionate, because, you see, anyone can buy online what is banned at retail.

Indeed, face-to-face retail of warm clothes and cold-weather shoes during winter is prohibited, but online sales are allowed.

Unfortunately, the Latvian government and epidemiologists have a misconception about the possibilities of all Latvians to use digital services. According to the results of the representative survey (Trust in state and public institutions, evaluation of the activities of politicians and state officials and used information sources, results of the survey of Latvian residents, December 2020) of the research center SKDS (1008 respondents), in December 2020, 18.2% of Latvians had never used Latvian Internet portals. Of these, 13.3% of respondents in Latvian-speaking families had never used Latvian Internet portals (the proportion of non-Internet users is significantly higher in Russian-speaking families).

Non-use of the Internet is radically different in different age groups. Of those under the age of 45, only 2.9% of respondents have never used Latvian Internet portals, but almost a quarter (23.6%) of Latvians over the age of 45 do not use the Internet. Digital skills and the use of digital technologies are particularly low in the over-63 age group. In this age group, 58.3% of respondents have never used Latvian Internet portals.

In the age group from 64 to 75 years, 46.7% of Latvians are not in any social network, but a third do not use e-mail! There are also quite a large number of people in the age group between 55 and 63 who are outside the digital world - 17% of respondents do not use e-mail, but 23% of respondents are outside social networks. In the Russian-speaking community of Latvia, these figures are even higher.

Given these circumstances, trade restrictions hit Latvia's most vulnerable population group the hardest - single elderly people without digital skills.

Lonely seniors have not been able to buy the shoes and clothes they need for winter conditions for more than a month now, and the long-term imposition of such bans on them is tantamount to torture.

Latvia has ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Article 1 of the Convention provides: "For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind".

There are currently circumstances where many freedoms, including free movement, are restricted, so the UN Convention can now be interpreted broadly, not just to those in prisons, but to all those who have limited freedom of movement due to epidemiological circumstances, including the possibility of leaving the country. As the purpose of sales restrictions is to force the Latvian population to take a specific action, but the bans cause moral and physical suffering to the most vulnerable group of Latvia, the establishment of such regulation without a compensation mechanism to reduce suffering directly to the most vulnerable group can be interpreted as a violation of the UN Convention.

The Latvian government must immediately end the discrimination against single and elderly people without digital skills, which they began at the level of state policy!