The dialog between the disabled and the state: A seemingly present, but at times relative

Yulia Stefnyak

At least now the authorities admit that there are “cases of discrimination” of persons with disabilities in Belarus. And will still be until the generation changes.

The other day a discussion “Inclusiveness. A world available for everyone” with the participation of the officials, representatives of NGOs, and civic activists took place in Johannes Rau International Centre for Education And Exchange. The event was organized with the help of UNICEF and UNDP.

Let us recall that in September 2015 Belarus has finally signed the Convention on rights of the Disabled, its ratification is ahead.

Employment is one of the main problems of persons with disabilities in the Belarusan society. The discussion started with the story of Nikita Trofimovich, a member of the UN Youth Advisory Council, about the unpleasant and humiliating experience of getting employed to a distant job.

Commenting on the Trofimovich’s story, Alexander Rumak, Deputy Minister of Labor and Social protection, stated that “Belarus has a number of laws that support the protection of people with disabilities when they are employed." "Of course, what Nikita said, does no credit to the people with whom he contacted, trying to find a job. Because no laws in our country contain restrictions for persons that want to work but for the medical evidence that prevent the implementation of this work. Nikita could have easily been coping with distant blogging, considering the development of information technology. Unfortunately, these things happen; people with disabilities inform the Ministry about the cases of discrimination when getting employment, "- Rumak said.

According to him, there seems to be enough stimulation for avoiding discrimination in Belarusian legislation, since there are benefits for employers: "Any organization must be ready to take the disabled to work, if the person is able to fulfill it and has the appropriate knowledge. Therefore, we hope that the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will allow to develop the mechanisms for the persons with disabilities to have as little hindrances for employment as possible".

At the same time Alexander Rumak recognizes that "the formation of a tolerant attitude of ordinary people towards the persons with disabilities is the main problem of our society", that is, benefits for employers and reservation of jobs for people with disabilities do not guarantee that a problem is solved.

According to Rumak, employers shouldn’t rely on complete budgetary support when giving employment to the disabled: "Labor Code provides for shortened working hours by one hour, the employer must pay a disabled person for full 8 hours. […] I think that the employer should consider this aspect when planning his or her resources and not expect to be compensated from the budget. There are certain activities that are financed from the state budget – the ones aimed at adapting a person with disabilities into the professional activity during a year. But perhaps it is not quite right if the work of the people with disabilities is completely compensated from the budget; the employer’s funds should also be included there. Here is when a question of the social responsibility of business arouses; the question, which business mentions so often, demanding preferences from the state. Unfortunately, it’s not always the case in practice”.

Asked about the issue of capacity, Rumak imformed that "it was the decision of the Constitutional Court to differentiate the issues of capacity deprivation; the work was entrusted to the Ministry of Justice, but to a large disappointment of the Ministry of Labor and Social protection, the proposal of the Constitutional Court has not yet been implemented."

Mikhail Antonenko, Deputy Chair of the Central Board of the Belarusian Association of the Visually Impaired says that "we haven’t created a situation where persons with disabilities can compete on the labor market." "Our society isn’t yet ready, and the guidelines won’t change it. It will take time; however, we also should constantly work on these problematic issues".

Svetlana Byakova-Mikutel, the Chair of the NGO "Revelation" believes that "the whole problem is that there is no adaptation system for the disabled in our country". "Of course, it is possible to get a desired education, but at the same time it’s impossible to find a job. […] We need a system; a singular action won’t solve the whole problem", - she assumes.

In addition, Svetlana Byakova-Mikutel added, the list of restrictions on vocational education should be revised: "this list often turns into a sentence for young people with disabilities. In our organization several children were traumatized by the fact that they were unable to enter the chosen department".

What happens to the Convention next?

As the deputy of the House of Representatives Larisa Bogdanovich informed, “I hope that the ratification of the Convention will happen this spring”. “Certain changes to the legislation will follow. However, the experts concluded that the legislation fits the realization of Convention norms almost to the full. We have quite good legislation”, - Bogdanovich said.

According to her, “there’s no doubt that we should teach our society to accept the disabled”. “If we consider inclusion, today every big city has schools with barrier-free environment; and, of course, if there is a disabled child in school his classmates perceive the disabled differently. We need to be patient and wait until the generation that has already seen the disabled grows up. Don’t forget that it was only when this problem was voiced in early 90s and when persons in wheelchairs went to the streets for the first time that we started realizing that there are such people among us”.

“All of the laws that we have are working. We need to think about the universal situation, the universal environment. Of course, we’ll consider the suggestions made by the public; we’ll study the foreign experience and introduce changes”, - Larisa Bogdanovich added.

Commenting on the discussion to the “EuroBelarus” Information Service Siarhei Drazdouski, the coordinator of the Office for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, said that persons with disabilities lack “high-quality dialog”: “Generally, no one from the officials has declined to talk with us. […] However, the decisions are still made by the ministries – so we can’t call this a fully-fledged dialog. It is, rather, of an imitation character; it does not imply the equality of participants. That’s why we have initiated a "zero" report on the situation that will serve as our powerful argument to the ratification of the Convention. It will be void, but on the other hand, as any document prepared by the civil society and submitted to the authorities, the report cannot but have consequences. The reaction of the authorities will make it possible to say to which extent the state is ready to answer for its words, to which extent it is ready for the stated interaction".

Regarding the issue of discrimination, Siarhei Drazdouski emphasizes that any country and any society has it; but the Belarusian situation is complicated by the fact that there is no possibility of judicial protection against such negative phenomena: "Any violation should have a very clear interpretation in terms of law and clear mechanisms for the prohibition and the rehabilitation of victims. We don’t have it in Belarus at all. We have discrimination, but we have no law that protects a person from discrimination. It isn’t possible to file a complaint about discrimination to the court – there are no grounds for that in the Belarusian law".

“We don’t want to complain but want to bring out the problems and suggest ways of their solution. With the help of our “zero” report as well”, - summed up Siarhei Drazdouski.