MINSK, 19 May (BelTA) – The Belarusian government expects the parliament to adopt the bill “On the rights of people with disabilities and their social integration” by the end of 2021, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Petrishenko said at a joint meeting of the House of Representatives and the Council of the Republic on 19 May, BelTA has learned.
Igor Petrishenko delivered a report about the development of the Belarusian social sector. He hailed the progress in the execution of the national action plan to implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the consistency of these efforts.
“The government always keeps an eye on problems of people with disabilities. At present, there are more than 564,000 such persons in Belarus (6% of the population), 34,500 of whom are underage,” Igor Petrishenko noted.
Most activities to improve the current legislation envisaged in the national plan were taken into account in the bill “On the rights of people with disabilities and their social integration”. “On 4 June 2020, the bill passed the first reading in the House of Representatives. We expect the parliament to adopt the bill by the end of the year,” Igor Petrishenko added.
Last year, Belarus adopted several regulations to expand opportunities for social integration of people with disabilities and provide additional social support to people with disabilities. They include doubling the period of respite care from 28 to 56 days a year, increasing the free time of caregiver's services for children with disabilities from 4 to 10 hours a week, increasing the availability of caregiver's services to families with children with disabilities of groups I or II under six years old (previously, such free services were provided to children under four), and other benefits.
Belarus also improves labor opportunities for persons with disabilities. In order to raise employers' interest in hiring people with disabilities, Belarus introduced amendments to the Tax Code in 2021, offering companies, in which people with disabilities make up at least 30% of all employees, tax preferences on value added tax, profit and real estate taxes.
In 2020, the number of organizations, in which people with disabilities account for over 30% of the workforce, increased almost 1.5 times. The number of employees with disabilities at such enterprises went up by 23.5%.
The number of people with disabilities who found a job in 2020 thanks to the work of employment services almost doubled over 2019.
In 2020, the number of such workers in the country rose by over 5% to 68,800 people, or 59% of the total number of people with disabilities who are able to work.
Photos by Andrei Pokumeiko
