The Hindu News Update Service default/empty News Update Service Saturday, September 6, 2008 : 1220 Hrs
International Discrimination against disabled continues in China: HRW New York (PTI): Despite recent positive steps, discrimination against disabled persons continues in China and organisations working for them face government harassment, a leading international human rights watchdog has said. In a statement issued yesterday on the eve of Paralympic Games in Beijing, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch Sophie Richardson praised the Chinese government for enacting laws and ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. "But so far these protections have meant little to persons with disabilities and their advocates in China who struggle to promote their rights and, in particular, to fairly compete for employment," she said. The Chinese government has in recent years enacted a variety of new laws including the Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons, Regulations on the Education of Persons with Disabilities, and the Regulations on Employment of Persons with Disabilities. These regulations on paper provide impressive protection to the rights of China's estimated 82.7 million persons with disabilities. But Human Rights Watch said that the new laws have not ended discriminatory employment practices. In June 2007, shocking images of workers who had been held in slave-like conditions in Shanxi brick kilns were published and many among them were found to have mental disabilities. In a 2007 survey by the China University of Political Science and Law of 3,454 people in 10 cities, including Beijing, Guangzhou and Nanjing, 22 per cent of the respondents said their physical disabilities had prompted employers in both the public and private sectors to reject them for jobs. Join Access India convention: For updates on it visit: http://accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm Registration is now open! To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
