Q: How does China guarantee the political rights of the disabled persons?

A: More and more disabled people and their relatives have entered the People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), legislative and political advisory bodies, at all levels. In 2006, 1,078 seats of legislatures at county level and above were occupied by disabled persons, their relatives and workers on disability, and 2,169 equivalents entered CPPCC committees at the same levels. They have become important participants in the country's political life, representing the 83 million disabled persons in the country.

Q: China is actively promoting accessibility. What's the latest progress?

A: The China Disabled Persons' Federation, the Ministry of Construction and other relevant ministries and departments have jointly issued regulations on accessible facilities, such as Accessibility Design Code of Roads and Public Buildings in Urban Areas, Railway Stations Accessibility Design Code and Accessibility Design Code of Special Schools. In 2004, 12 cities were honored as models for the construction of accessible facilities. In the period between 2006 and 2010, 100 cities will be added to the model list. At the same time, we are also improving ICT accessibility for the disabled people by promoting TV news and films caption and TV sign language programs. We also encourage video information displays at public places, sign language services and writing communication aid for people with hearing disabilities. Those moves helped create an accessible environment for people with disabilities and facilitated their integration into social life.

Q: China has been working hard on the goal of “Rehabilitation for All”. What achievements have been made and what challenges faced to hit the goal?

A: China is committed to realize “Rehabilitation for All” by 2015. Before that, our goal is to make rehabilitation services accessible to almost all disabled people in urban areas and comparatively developed rural areas, and to the 70% disabled people in underdeveloped countryside by 2010.

After decades of efforts, more than 13 million disabled people have received rehabilitation service. Now the government is improving the work by expanding rehabilitation services, training more experts in this field and improving community medical services. The work is also being strengthened by the funding from the commonweal lottery program, the establishment of a new rural healthcare program and the adoption of medical assistance policies in urban and rural areas. At the same time, we are also making greater efforts in raising social awareness on disability prevention and rehabilitation. Generally speaking, we are striding towards the goal of Rehabilitation for All.

However, we also face severe challenges in hitting the goal. According to the survey in 2006, there is still a great gap between the status quo of the rehabilitation work and the disabled people’s demand on it. While about 28% of respondents in the survey said they needed rehabilitation service and 39% needed assistive devices, only 8.45% actually had received such services and 7.31% had enjoyed such aid.

And about 75% of the disabled people live in the countryside, usually economically underdeveloped areas, posing a greater challenge to the rehabilitation goal. As the average per capita income of families with disabled members is less than half of the national average level, poverty remains a major obstacle to rehabilitation access. A survey in Beijing, Sichuan and Henan in 2006 showed that about 33% mentally disabled and 61% with mental illnesses needed rehabilitation services but could not afford the cost. In addition, 43% people with hearing disabilities and 31% people with speech disabilities needed but could not afford assistive devices.

So, we have to continue to shore up the input in the work, improve the services and seek an effective mechanism to cover all the disabled under the net of rehabilitation service.

Q: What has China done to guarantee the rights of disabled people to education?

A: China has established a special education system for disabled people that covers primary education, vocational education, higher education and adult continued education. The system has become an important part of the country's educational development.

The rights of disabled people to education are under the protection of China’s Constitution, which is accordingly reflected in the Education Law, Compulsory Education Law, Vocational Education Law, Higher Education Law and Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons. In 1994, the State Council promulgated the Regulations on the Education of Disabled Persons, providing a special guarantee for people with disabilities to enjoy rights to education. Since 1988, the Chinese government has held three special national conferences on special education, and has mapped out 5 five-year work programs on disability with education of disabled people as an important part. In 1989, the government established a central budget subsidy fund for special education, injecting 23 million yuan (US$3.2 million) annually in the compulsory education of disabled children. The annual fund has been raised to 27.2 million yuan since 2001. Totally, about 550 million yuan had been inputted by 2006. At the same time, most governments at provincial level also established similar funds.

Disabled children are also covered by the national tuition fee exemption scheme and education assistance programs like the Project Hope and Spring Buds Project. The China Disabled Persons' Federation and the Ministry of Education also jointly launched some special education assistance programs, injecting about 150 million yuan to help 90,000 disabled students and subsidize 18 special senior high schools or classes and one special education college.

Q: What are the regulations that promote compulsory education for disabled children at school age?

A: The Compulsory Education Law, which was revised in 2006, has detailed regulations on compulsory education for disabled children. It stipulates that governments at county levels and above are responsible for the establishment and development of special schools and special classes at ordinary schools. The schools should provide accessible environment and necessary facilities for disabled students’ study. Schools that refuse to enroll disabled children who are capable of receiving general education might be punished by law. The law also regulates that teachers at special schools can enjoy special allowances and the per capita outlay for public use on special school budgets should be higher than that of ordinary schools.

Q: What special policies has China adopted to guarantee disabled people's equal rights to employment?

A: The improvement of living conditions and equal participation into social life will become a castle in the air if disabled people have no employment opportunities. Disabled people are usually disadvantaged in fierce competition in the job market. Their rights to employment, however, are protected by the Constitution and corresponding laws. The State Council in May 2007 promulgated the Regulations on the Employment of Disabled Persons with the aim at promoting equal employment rights of the group.

The government has also adopted a series of preferential policies, such as in taxation and administrative approval, for businesses operated by or employing disabled people. Self-employed disabled people also enjoy subsidy if they buy endowment insurances.

In addition, the China Disabled Persons' Federation and related governmental departments are making feasibility studies on setting up nursing homes where the mentally disabled and people with mental illnesses and serious disabilities can receive basic rehabilitation services and basic labor skill training.

While competition has become inevitable in the job market, the Chinese government is also adopting protective measures to enable more disabled people to get employed. Protecting the rights of disabled people to employment is regarded as a common responsibility of both the government and the society.

Under the protection of special policies, the blind massage business has seen robust growth. In 2006, nearly 100,000 blind people were working at about 10,000 massage service businesses.

Statistics show that nearly 30% employed disabled people work at governmental departments, enterprises, educational and health care sectors. And more and more people with disabilities are working in the fields of science and technology and cultural sectors.

More than 3,000 employment service agencies for disabled people have been established at provincial, city and county levels, which cover both urban and rural areas.

Q: What measures has China taken to alleviate poverty of the disabled population? What will the government do in this respect in the following years?

A: Disabled persons occupy an important position in the national plan of poverty alleviation. In the five years from 2001 to 2005, the central government earmarked 4 billion yuan of loan for rehabilitation and poverty reduction, which benefited 1.25 million disabled people. Local governments also raised 720 million yuan for the work. And 8.21 million poor disabled people received agricultural technology training. As housing problem has become a major obstacle in poverty alleviation for disabled people, the State Council decided to earmark, since 2003, a special fund from the commonweal lottery program to help improve their housing conditions. The fund has been used to revamp the houses of more than 50,000 families, benefiting nearly 64,000 disabled people.

The comprehensive service system for rural disabled people is also being improved. 1,887 county level and 18,979 township level service centers for disabled people had been established in the five years, which provided institutional guarantee for poverty reduction of disabled people.

The national poverty alleviation campaign has benefited nearly 12 million rural people with disabilities, but there are still 8.7 million who have basic subsistence difficulties. According to our plan for the period between 2006 and 2010, we will help 10 million more rural disabled people get rid of feeding and clothing difficulties. And for those who have had no basic subsistence problems, we will help them gradually raise their economic gains. We will cover one million rural disabled people in central and western regions under the farming technology training program and revamp houses for 320,000 rural families with disabled members.

We will make continuous efforts to seek new measures for poverty alleviation of disabled people and contribute to the national drive of building a harmonious society.