Yauheni Shauko: People with disabilities have to count only on their pensions

Economic crisis in Belarus continues. How will people with disabilities survive in these conditions?

According to the macroeconomic forecast prepared by the IPM Research Center, in 2015 the Belarusian GDP will decrease by 3.7%. In 2016, the recessionary environment is likely to persist, because of permanently depressed investment demand. “Decreasing employment will be one more permanent attribute of this macroeconomic development path,” – the economists believe.

How are more socially vulnerable social strata, persons with disabilities in particular, going to survive in these conditions? “EuroBelarus” Information Service asked Yauheni Shauko, the chair of the Public association “Republican Association of Wheelchair Users” (PA RAWU) about it:

- I work with the wheel-chair users, so I can talk about them. The majority of wheelchair users live by pensions, which is little. Our legislation today implies that pension is a minimally guaranteed state’s aid and the disabled, just like healthy people, should aim at providing for themselves. If Belarus really had conditions for that, such as, for example, barrier-free environment, which we should have in correspondence with the legislation, then the majority of the disabled would be studying and working. But while now the majority of these people cannot even leave their homes, and those, who can, cannot reach their working place, there is little hope for work. They can only hope for their pensions. It was hard to survive on that before; and during the crisis it won’t become better.

- Are there any hopes or leading lights for the improvement of the situation, even if only thanks to the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities signed this autumn?

- The Convention gives hope that our state will be better complying with the international standards and norms adopted in other countries. Besides, we need to take into account that the Convention is signed by the president and still should be ratified in the Parliament. It is still unknown when it will happen; I don’t think it will happen any time soon. Thus, for now we can only declare our adoption of the Convention without having the legislation that provides for its implementation, even if it comes to discrimination of persons with disabilities since we don’t have such notion and, therefore, don’t have sanctions for that. If I’m discriminated because I’m a wheelchair user it is a mystery who should bear responsibility for that. Belarus should adopt a huge amount of laws in order to comply with the Convention; but for now it’s nobody’s concern.

- It means that we shouldn’t expect any alternative possibilities for persons with disabilities to get additional income in 2016…

- Nothing new will appear soon. And I think that the main problem for the wheelchair users is barrier-free environment. As soon as this problem is resolved, people will start studying, reeducating themselves, getting employment where they want and how they want. Now there are no conditions for that, and they won’t appear any time soon. In the time of the Soviet Union everything was much worse, now the situation is becoming better, but is still developing slowly. We track it, we make rows, but a lot of problems still remain.

- I.e. wheelchair users can hope to survive only thanks to pensions…

- For today – yes. Of course, there are wheelchair users who work: most of them live in Minsk, since Minsk has more opportunities. But still, it’s quite small circle of people – about 10% at a stretch. No one has counted these people on purpose.