Armenia starts month's campaign in defence of invalids' rights

On the initiative of the Ministry of Labour and the National Commission on Invalids' Matters, from early December Armenia will start a month-long campaign aimed to attract the attention of the society to people with limited physical capabilities, with the main accent on defence of invalids' rights. This was reported by Jema Bagdasaryan, deputy minister for labour of work and social care.

The actions will pass in Yerevan, Gyumri and Spitak. According to Ms Bagdasaryan, the campaign assumes holding a number of events and actions aimed at changing the attitude of the society to its disabled persons.

"In this programme, an important place will be given borrow to appealing employers to outgo not from a would-be worker cannot do, but from what he or she can do," the deputy minister has noted.

She has also reported that Armenia is now implementing a programme aimed at giving jobs to handicapped people, based on the experience of Lithuania and Sweden; its primary goal is to address the problem of integrating those handicapped into the society. According to the deputy minister, the programme does not exclude granting tax privileges to those enterprises, where invalids' labour is used.

In Ms Bagdasaryan's opinion, now, invalids' rights are ignored by her country. "It's seen at erection of new buildings and operation of transport vehicles. Efforts should be applied to integrate invalids into society. They should enjoy same conditions as all the rest citizens of the republic," she said.

According to the Ministry of Labour and Social Care, today Armenia registers 175,000 invalids, of them - 114,000 are employable people.