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

China Daily

I got a question for Mr. Yu. You mentioned all the measure that the government has taken to promote employment for the disabled person. What are the measures they take for social security for the persons with disability? You said in 2007, about 20 million disabled found jobs. How about the rest 60 million disabled persons that do not have jobs?

Yu Faming

For the undertaking of the persons with disability in China. Among the 80 million person with disability, those with working ability are about 43 million. Most of these people are in the rural areas. In the countryside, it is kind of natural employment. We have providing jobs for most of those with disability living in cities. For those unemployed persons with disability, they have access to the unemploymentation. Without jobs, they are entitled to the minimum living or support grounds.

The second is about the access to the social security. Actually, we have covered all of them including the persons with disability in terms of establishing the institutional arrangement. In such process, we attached more importance to this group of people. For instance, before coming up with the regulation and law, we have put in place a special regulation for the employment of people with disability. This employment promotion law was promulgated on May 1st this year in which we specify the preferential tax policies and fight against any prejudice in the employment of disability. All these provision are very detailed in this employment promotion law which came to be effective in January this year. I hope I have answered your question.

AFP

I just want to ask, will the Paralympic Games change the attitudes across China? What else can be done to change people attitude's across China towards the disabled?

Sun Xiande

We all know that the single event can't not change the attitudes of the people. It's a lengthy process. Since the opening reform of China, the attitude towards these people with disability have changed, have improved. With the economic growth and the raising of the civility level of the general public, as you can feel around you, you can feel this kind of indications and changes everywhere. The name of the disabled person is a very strong indication. They used to be called handicapped person, but instead, we call them persons with disability. Even kids know it is not inappropriate for them to call these people handicapped people. This change, we refer to this persons with disability is a change of attitudes. You can tell by seeing how they help the people with disability. I believe that with the further rising of the civility level in China, our attitudes towards persons with disability will be further improved.

South China Morning Post

Mr. Sun Weide, I spoke to you yesterday about a story we haven't been able to update. I'd be speaking with some charity groups. One of them is from Hong Kong who for the last ten yeas has been visiting a number of orphans for disabled children around Beijing and Hebei area. From April and May they were told by the directors of the orphanages that they could no longer attend citing security reasons and that they could come back with their services which also included medical professionals such as physiotherapists and that they can return to the orphanages in October after the Paralympics. Mr. Sun, I'm just wondering you said you are going to go and investigate this yesterday.

Mr. Zhang, as you represent the capital aspirations of China towards the disabled. I'm just going to ask are you aware of the security measures that prevented the foreign volunteers to go to the orphanages. If you are not, will you try to find out if it's that your ministry has endorsed and what do you think about this? Thanks very much.

Sun Weide

Actually, we were talking to some departments concerned after receiving your call yesterday. We don't have any further information to share with you at this point of time. Mr. Zhang, do you have any point to add?

Zhang Shifeng

Actually for your question, we know nothing and not aware of the situations you are referring to. I will apologize to you for not being able to provide further information on the matter. Sorry.

Christian Science Monitor

A question for Mr. Sun and Mr. Yu. Mr. Sun, you said that there were 20,000 disabled people in higher education. If we assumed that about 5% of the population is of student age and 80 million disabled people that means there are 4 million of student age. If even three quarters of them are not capable of higher education, that will still leave about one million people and 20,000 places means that 2% of disabled people of student age are at higher education. I was wondering what do you think it's high though.

For Mr. Yu, you mentioned the law that makes the company and state enterprises take a certain percentages of the workforce among the disabled, otherwise, I understand that they have to pay the fine. I also understand that most enterprises and companies do prefer to pay the fine that to employ the disable people. I wonder if you have come across that problem and what do you think you can do to persuade people to employ disabled people and not to pay the fine? Thank you.

Sun Xiande

I would like to answer the first part of your question. As for the education for the people with disability, it's just like the education for the able body people. I believe that education is the basis for everything for the people with disability. I believe the level of education is the key to any person. We started late for the people with disability. That is a fact. In the past two decades, we have been developing the education for the disabled people very fast. A lot of measures have been taken to improve the education of these people. But as you know, the development in China is not so even across the country. Although the government has taken a lot of measures, it will take some time to provide higher education access to all persons with disability. I don't think the proportion of percentage point is very high. As far as I am concern, education should be provided to all those who can be educated. We can guarantee the so called regular education for the person with disability but quite a lot of person with disability such as the deaf and the mentally challenged persons, they need special education, textbooks, teachers and facilities for their education. We all know that education is a system engineering and takes time. Of course the government has realized the necessity to strengthen the education for person with disability. This year, for example, the state has come up with 600 million RMB in developing the special education.

I believe 190 of such schools will be build in the future. The government will make more and more investments into this connection. More capital and human resources will be invested. I believe in not so far future, the proportion for the persons with disability would be even greater in hand. Thank you.

Yu Faming

I would like to answer your second question. You were saying that according to the laws in china. All the institutions and employers including the state-run institutions or enterprises should take persons with disability as their employees according to some percentage. You were saying you believe some of the enterprises, they do not take up the persons with disability. Then what can we do with them? I can tell you, frankly, if they do that, they would break the law, they should take legal responsibilities, they will take legal consequences. Because according to the law, you would take the consequences. Of course, if the proportion is 1.5% and if that 1.5% point is not met, there is no such thing as fine. But rather as in business you should take up your corporate social responsibilities. Maybe the positions in your enterprises may not be suitable for the persons with disability. If that is the case, you have to pay the compensations so the government can use the money to develop other jobs for the person with disability.

Of course, some of the organizations would rather pay the compensation than taking up the person with disability. For those businesses, we need to give them some corporate social responsibility (CSR) training. I believed that would follow first, if they don't do it, they are breaking the law.

Kyodo News

Two questions. The first one goes to Mr. Sun. In the handouts you give us, the total number of people with a disability is more than that of 1987. The percentage of people with a disability in the total population is growing, too. What is the reason for that? Another question is, more and more persons with congenital disabilities. My second, when I was interviewing some of the blind athletes, some officials from BOCOG told us there would be no mixed zones for that competition and also the right holding broadcasters. Because they paid the money, they have the right to do the interview, while for us, we didn't pay any money, so we don't have right to do the interviewing.

Sun Xiande

Thank you very much for your questions. You are right in terms of the two surveys.

From the second survey, we see more people with a disability. Of course that has something to do with the overall growth of the overall population. But also we know that, people in China now have a longer life span -- more and more new persons with a disability are elderly people. Another factor is traffic accidents, as well as some medical accidents and pharmaceuticals. Also the criteria for those surveys are different, due to various factors, and also the changes of the criteria for defining persons with a disability, we see a growth in the number of persons with a disability.

Sun Weide

For your second question, that is the mixed zones in the hockey field, I need to find out with the venue team.

Reporter from Germany

If you look at the street of Beijing, usually, many people collecting the trash are people disabled. At the moment, many of them are not here, because they are not allowed to be there during the Olympics. What is the explanation that many disabled have to pick up this kind of low range jobs?

Yu Faming

I don't not know whether how many people with disability you have been seeing picking up the trashes, you were also saying they are no longer there, if that is the case, how could you see disabled people picking up garbage? In China, we have a recycling campaign. Garbage sometimes means the misplaced items. Not only the person with disability but rather most of the people are abled body persons. Some of them pick up the plastic bags, the plastic bottles. I don't believe you can call those jobs lower range jobs. And some of them can make a lot of money. In Beijing and also other cities in other parts of the world, we can also see those people doing that. It is not true in China that only persons with disability will do that kind of jobs.

Sun Weide

If you gave no more questions, I would like to end today's press conference. Thank you all for your time, tomorrow, we are going to have three press conferences. You can find the related information on the official website of BOCOG. Thank you.