Law to Protect the Disabled and Criticism of the Government's "Time Wasting"

Iranian disabled people are struggling with unemployment and livelihood problems, but the “Fund for Supporting Employment Opportunities for People with Disabilities” has been waiting for months for the issuance of administrative regulations. The law protecting the rights of disabled people requires a budget of 30 trillion tomans.

For a year and a half, the “Fund for Supporting Employment Opportunities for People with Disabilities” has been awaiting executive regulations. The fund, which aims to reduce the unemployment rate of people with disabilities and is supposed to provide facilities in the field of self-employment and cooperatives related to people with disabilities, is set to provide assistance.

The constitution and international treaties recognize the right to work for all. Iran is also a party to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which considers employment and determining employment quotas for people with disabilities to be the responsibility of governments. Article 10 of the Law on the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was approved on March 10, 2017, mandates the Ministry of Cooperation, Labor and Social Welfare to establish such a fund for the disabled.

Khairollah Shahbazi, a disability rights activist, criticized the fund's indecisiveness and the government's procrastination, telling ILNA News Agency: "The limitations of the disabled should be strengthened through rehabilitation and vocational training so that this segment of society can enjoy the right to employment as much as possible. In various countries, efforts are being made to reduce unemployment among people with disabilities by allocating a share of employment and necessary subsidies to production and economic units."

The provision of credit facilities to production, service and development units where disabled people work, the provision of credit facilities for self-employment and low-cost payments for improving efficiency to production units were among the fund's predictions, none of which have been implemented. Shahbazi says that not only has no statute been written for this fund, but the fund has not been established in the first place.

Khairollah Shahbazi has stated that the unemployment rate for the disabled is several times higher than that of other people, and disabled people are not even paid the minimum wage of a worker due to the lack of approval of the necessary budget.

ILNA quotes this disabled rights activist as saying: "We no longer have time to waste opportunities. Many people with disabilities are facing many livelihood problems these days, and the regulations related to the law on the protection of the disabled must be announced as soon as possible. Of course, the government has promised to announce it. Welfare and other organizations and people with disabilities must know their duty."

Khairullah Shahbazi says that with the approval of the 2019 budget law, it was decided to increase the subsidy for the disabled, and a number of disabled people will receive 108,000 Tomans more in subsidy than others. However, the rehabilitation and illness costs of the disabled are several times higher than those of ordinary people, and taking into account the poverty line, this type of support does not have much effect on disabled workers.

It has been a year and a half since the law on the protection of the rights of people with disabilities was passed. At that time, the budget for this law was estimated at around 12 trillion tomans. Shahbazi told ILNA: “Taking into account inflation, implementing the law on the protection of the rights of people with disabilities now requires a budget of around 28 to 30 trillion tomans.” The Ministry of Social Welfare, the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, and the Ministry of Science are all contributing to this budget.

According to Article 15 of the Comprehensive Law on the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the government is required to allocate at least three percent of employment permits (official, contractual, labor) in government and public institutions to qualified persons with disabilities. Failure to implement this provision and other provisions of the relevant law is justified by the issues of sanctions, economic stagnation, and lack of credit. Iranians with disabilities have repeatedly gathered in front of the parliament and the Ministry of Labor to protest the uncertainty of this law.

Source: DW