Press conference: Career development of people with a disability in China

Date/Time: 11:00 a.m., Monday, September 8

Venue: Main Press Conference (MPC)

Sun Weide

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to our press conference. This morning, we are going to talk about the China's undertaking for the disabled. We have invited Sun Xiande, deputy director general of China Disabled Persons' Federation; Yu Faming, director general, Department of Employment Promotion, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security; and Zhang Shifeng, deputy director, Department of Social Welfare and Charitable Enterprise Promotion, Ministry of Civil Affairs. Fist I would like to give the floor to Mr. Sun Xiande.

Sun Xiande gives speech at the press conference.

Sun Xiande

Ladies and Gentlemen, friends from the media, good morning. Today, we are in the day 3 of the 13th Paralympic Games. I'd like to take this opportunity to brief you on the status quo of China's undertaking for the disabled. This year we have celebrated the 30th anniversary of the open door policy, also the 20th anniversary for the founding of the China's Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF).

China's undertaking for the disabled has been developed and has prospered in the process of reform and opening up in China. It has evolved from a charity only or relief activities into a comprehensive social undertaking. Over the past two decades, the government has adopted the host of major measures to carry out sample service for disabled persons in China. It promulgated the law on the protection on disabled person, regulation on the education and employment of disabled person. It is also issued an opinion by the CPC central committee and state council on the promotion on the undertaking for the disabled.

On the promotion of the undertaking for the disabled and the national programs and plans have been promoted, institutions have been set up and policies and other measures have been worked out to provide for rehabilitation, employment and education for the disabled. Therefore, the new types of organization for the disabled have been set up one after the other. In general, the undertaking for the disabled has been well progressing at present. A complete set of organizations, institutions, the structures, bodies of policies, and laws and regulations have been put into place.

There is noticeable improvement of the conditions for the disabled. At present there are nearly 20,000 rehabilitation institutions in China. Key projects and community-based programs have been carried out such as the cataract removals surgeries, language training for the deaf children, prevention and rehabilitation for metal diseases so that rehabilitation has been provided for 15.24 million disabled persons.

The school enrollment rate for the deaf and blind and intellectual retarded children has reached 80.7%. We have established 1,667 special education institution, and 14 institutions of high learning for disabled persons. Nearly 20,000 disabled have been enrolled in institutes of higher education. And jobs have been provided for 4.34 million disabled in urban areas. Over 7 million of them have received vocational training and 6.36 million of them enjoyed allowance for minimum standard of living.

600,000 of them are enjoying various forms of social security in a centralized way and poverty relieve activities have been provided for the basic necessities for over ten million households with disabled persons and new housing or housing renovation been provided 287,000 households with disabled in the rural areas. A large number of accessible facilities have been put in place. We have established 2,600 legal institutions, 3,200 rights protection posts for the disabled persons and 3,300 law firms are providing legal performances for the disabled.

Sports for the disabled are developing sound and fast. 2.6 million people have participated in the various Paralympics, special Olympics and Olympics for the deaf. There have been a lot of cultural performances, such as the masterpiece of thousands hands of mercy. Over 100,000 volunteer liaison positions have been established to help the disabled with 1.39 million registered voulunteers. We have established recognition systems for the role models for the disabled persons. Over 50 of them have been awarded 'Masters of Technology Nationwide'. We take active part internationally in the undertaking for the disabled. We are one of the initiators for the international convention on the rights of the disabled persons. We have established international cooperation with 30 other countries and regions in this regards.

The organization and individuals of people with disability have taken a democratic part in the economic, political and social, and cultural undertakings of China. We have 1179 deputies at the people's congress who are disabled or relatives of them, and over 2926 of them acting as members of CPPCC. So that the motto of self respect, self confidence, self determination and self reliance have been further promoted. Ladies and gentlemen, the development of China's undertaking has been benefited by the open door policy and help from all works of life as well as support of media at home and abroad. Hereby, on behalf of the disabled persons of China and CDPF, I would like to express sincere thanks for all of you. Thank you.

Sun Weide

Thank you very much, Mr. Sun. Now let me give floor to Mr. Yu Faming.

Yu Faming gives speech at the press conference.

Yu Faming

Ladies and gentlemen, friends from the media, good morning. Next, let me briefly talk about the employment of the disabled.

The Chinese government attached great importance to the employment of the disabled persons and has incorporated this aspect into the overall employment strategy planning in China with priority given to it.

In China, for the employment for the disabled, we have centralized and non-centralized employment, there are three avenues.

1. Centralized employment which means the disabled persons are assigned for not for profit employers in a centralized way.

2. Non-centralized employment, according to the provisions of the laws of the People's Republic of China, Protection of the Disabled, and the regulations on the employment of them, the government institutions and private sector should provide for jobs for the disabled according to the proportions of all jobs available.

3. For the disabled to seek jobs themselves. We encourage them to give full play to their capabilities and talents to take an equal part in market based competitions so that they can find jobs and contribute to the overall social good in order to promote the employment by the disabled. China promulgated the law of PRC on Protection of Disabled Persons and Regulation on the Employment of the Disabled so that the government responsibility in this regard has been further clarified together with the host of supporting policies. Therefore a complete set of legal structures and policy frameworks have been created to promote the employment for the disabled.

Now with implementation of those policies and further encouraging the incentives for the disabled to find jobs themselves and priorities given to the disabled persons living in the rural areas, employment by the disabled persons has been growing steadily and effectively. Let me cite some statistics. By the end of 2007, in urban areas in China, 4.337 million disabled persons have been employed. 16.966 million disabled persons in the rural areas has been employed. In 2007, new jobs created for the disabled person in urban areas was numbered 392,000. Every year we need to provide new jobs for the 300,000 disabled persons. Therefore, the need is fully satisfied. Then 119,000 of them have been employed through centralized employment. 115,000 of them have been employed according to the non-centralized scheme. 158,000 of them found jobs themselves with various types of help. Therefore the market-based employment mechanism has accounted for over 40%. For other statistics, they are in the press release. So much for my briefing.

Sun Weide

Thank you, Mr. Yu. Now I would like to give the floor to Mr. Zhang.

Zhang Shifeng

Good morning. It's my great pleasure on behalf of the Ministry of Civil Affairs to talk about the social welfare and charitable business. First, I want to talk about the social security for the disabled. With the urban and rural social security institutions, we are providing help for the dependent population and senior population, disabled person, juveniles and children. At present, we have nearly 35,000 of rural social security institutions supporting other 1.49 million people. For the children, we have 269 of those institutions supporting 34,000 people and 153 mental institutions supporting 29,000 of those needing support of this kind. Many of the recipients are disabled person especially in the orphanages. Most of the orphans are disabled. For the mental institutions, almost all of them are disabled persons. In recent years, the Ministry of Civil Affairs is attaching a great deal of importance to the development of the institutions in urban and rural areas. Since 2006, we have initiated the blue sky program for the children, the morning light program for the rural area. This year we initiated further programs for the urban areas.

In the next few years on the nationwide scale, at the local and prefecture level, orphanages and other institutions for the children at charities will be established everywhere together with other social institutions. Putting emphasis on the construction of the institutions also based on the features of the persons with disability, our ministry has been focusing on the provisioning of the medical services for the persons with disability. Since 2004, our ministry has launched a project for the rehabilitation for the kids with disability. We have totally invested 800 million RMB for more than 40,000 kids with disability. Many of them have been adopted by Chinese families. Our ministry has been providing a key role in providing guidance for the communities so as to provide services and equipments for the establishment on the rehabilitation services institutions on the committee level. We have established more than 172,000 such centers at the community level. We have also established 304 pilot projects at the rural areas so as to provide good services for our persons with disability living in the rural areas.

Secondly, we have been doing our best to provide services to those people with disability with minimum requirements and needs. We have been providing categorized services. Those will enjoy different levels of support based on the degrees of disability. Specifically for the severe handicapped persons, they will get 10-50% extra above the minimum level standard by 2008.

As of June, 2008, among the 22,677,000 handicap persons, about 5.6% of such population has been joined this kind of support. Such system has been put into place in many parts of the country. Also, at the same time about 667,000 rural residents have been put as part of the target in joining this kind of support. They are being enjoying some medical support from us. We have taken a lot of special measures to relieve the difficulties of those disabled persons.We have sponsored more than 1.245 million handicapped persons to participate in the medical system.

Thirdly we have been doing our best to promote the growth of the non-profit institutions. They provide jobs for the disabled persons. They are very special institutions and the main form for founding employment for the disability. Since April 2005, together with other ministries, Ministry of Civil Affairs has been providing preferential tax policies to these organizations. Since last year, a new set of policies has been put in place for these institutions. For instance, these new policies are even more preferential compared to those put in place before. As a result of this measure, the right of the person with disability has been well protected. So far, a total of 563,000 persons with disability have been offered jobs in the organizations.

Fourthly, in 2007, a total of 22.3 billion RMB have been donated by people to help people with disability. In 2008, our ministry has provided the equity money, totaling 50 million RMB for the lottery project. The Li Ka Shing Foundation from Hong Kong has been providing donations of 50 million RMB. This indicates the care the whole society has sharing for the persons with disability. Thank you very much.

Sun Weide

Now the floor is open for question. Please identify yourselves before raise your questions.