Disabled people’s rights not protected properly in Armenia
18.10.2012,
18:40
Disabled people’s rights are not protected properly in Armenia, Susanna Tadevosyan, head of Bridge of Hope nongovernmental organization and founding member the National Union for Disabled People’s Rights Protection, said Thursday in Novosti International Press Center.
YEREVAN, October 18. /ARKA/. Disabled people’s rights are not protected properly in Armenia, Susanna Tadevosyan, head of Bridge of Hope nongovernmental organization and founding member the National Union for Disabled People’s Rights Protection, said Thursday in Novosti International Press Center.
She pointed out unemployment as major problem for the disabled.
According to Armenian Employment Service Agency’s latest figures, 90,000 of the 170,000 registered disabled are working-age and skilled people who are, however, jobless.
In 2011, Bridge of Hope NGO established The Best Employer award and asked Yerevan employers to inform it how many disabled people work at their establishments.
“Some 99% of the surveyed employers gave us a written answer saying they have no the disabled among their employees,” Tadevosyan said.
It has become known form the survey that the only organizations with significant number of disabled employees are VivaCell-MTS and HSBC Bank Armenia.
“Many employers in the country think that if one has disability degree, he is not able to perform one or another work,” Tadevosyan said.
Among other problems, she singled out the lack of conveniences and discrimination.
She is convinced that substantial legislative changes and the authorities’ good will are needed first of all for successful efforts to break the mould.
Stressing the importance of the mass media, Tadevosyan said that they can highlight disabled people’s problems.
She said the union intends to press for setting special quotas for this category of people, and added that the labor and social affairs ministry is now working out a new draft law for that, which is believed to be sent to the National Assembly in 2013. -0-
