People with disabilities’ employment in public sector is 1% — report

AMMAN — The employment rate of people with disabilities in the public sector stands at around 1 per cent, while it is around 0.5 per cent in the private sector, the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) said in its 2014 report released Tuesday. 

The report said some employers “circumvent” the Law on Persons with Disabilities to avoid employing them, in addition to paying them low salaries in the private sector, with many receiving wages less than the minimum monthly salary of JD190, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stipulates that private and public sector institutions with over 25 and less than 50 employees are obligated to employ one disabled person, while in companies with over 50 employees, 4 per cent must be people with disabilities.

The report also said that many people with psychological and mental disorders are seen roaming downtown Amman unattended. 

Children with mild and medium mental disabilities continue to face difficulties enrolling in private schools, and the number of public schools qualified to receive them is low due to the lack of accessibility, the NCHR said in the report.

The report noted that more than 250 students with disabilities were deprived of studying at charity associations’ educational centres in the Northern Badia and Mafraq at the beginning of the 2014-15 academic year due to the Ministry of Education’s inability to provide these centres with special education teachers.

Families of around 25 per cent of care centres’ residents do not visit their relatives more than once a year, the NCHR noted, adding that a resident of a care centre in Karak was visited only three times during his 19-year stay.

The report called for amending the Law on Persons with Disabilities to ensure that its provisions are obligatory, stressing the need to provide inclusive education that encompasses students with disabilities.