SWB
FE/1224 C1/23
The Shanghai Technical School for Young Deaf-Mutes offers woodwork, metalwork and fine arts courses. Its graduates are employed in 16 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, and many of them have become engineers or assistant engineers.
The state has a preferential policy in developing education for the disabled. China's financial departments provide subsidies for special education. Apart from tuition-fees exemption and scholarships for the disabled students receiving compulsory education, there are also prizes to encourage and support self-taught disabled youths.
The Chinese government supports many welfare enterprises in which the disabled are employed. It supports them in every way, in their production, management, technology, funding, taxation and marketing. With the help of the government's preferential policy, welfare enterprises increased rapidly from 1,022 in 1979 to 42,000 in 1990. In the 1980s the number of handicapped people working in these enterprises increased by 67,000 each year, bringing the total to 750,000. Government organs and other institutions and enterprises also employ some handicapped people. At the same time, the country encourages the handicapped to open individual businesses.
At present, among the 5.18m urban handicapped aged 16 to 59, about 2.6m are employed. The employment rate is now at 50.19%. In rural areas there are about 17m handicapped aged 16 to 59, and 10.3m of them are engaged in raising crops or livestock. This means that 60.55% of the rural handicapped have jobs.
The government's cultural departments at all levels actively organize and support cultural, sport and recreational activities of the disabled, enriching their life and guaranteeing their equal cultural rights. Today, there are in China 1,770 centres for the disabled to carry out activities such as calligraphy, painting, photography, stamp collecting, track and field, ball games, chess, art performances and quizzes. The China Sports Association for the Disabled, established in 1983, has joined seven world handicapped sports organizations. international games China's handicapped athletes have won nearly 400 medals, and set many world records.
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By means of welfare measures such as aid, relief, subsidy, provisions, insurance and special care, the government has ensured and improved the livelihood of the disabled. There are 1.4m disabled who are unable to work and have no legal providers and living resources. In rural areas, these people are protected under the five-guarantee system - the guarantees of food, clothing, housing, medical treatment and burial expenses
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or live in welfare homes, while in urban areas, they are provided with regular relief or collective living facilities.
Throughout China there are almost 40,000 welfare facilities capable of accommodating about 80,000 handicapped people. Governments at all levels offer preferential conditions for the handicapped by reducing or exempting taxes and fees in their work, education, medical care and living, cultural and recreational expenses. Customs duties have been reduced or exempted for special goods and equipment imported for the use of the handicapper. The End can travel by public 'us, trobey, underground anu ferry free of charge.
8 Nov 91
The government and the Disabled Persons' federation have paid attention to eliminating discrimination against and prejudice towards the disabled. Great efforts have been made to create a social environment in which the disabled are respected and helped. Tens of thousands of people, under the banner of "society for the disabled and vice versa”, participated in activities such as the Day of the Disabled, Helping-the-Disabled Day and Humanitarian Publicity Week. The "Young Pioneers' Helping-the-Handicapped Activities" involving more than 10m children have been going on for the past five years. Activities such as "building families for the handicapped and being friends to them" have been widely attended. China has set 19th May of each year as the legal "national day for helping the handicapped".
China is gradually expanding the building of obstacle-free facilities so that the handicapped can participate in social life more easily. Slope passages and handrails have been built for the convenience of the handicapped on streets and in shops, hotels, theatres, libraries, airports and other public places in Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Shenyang and Guangzhou.
China has actively participated in the international community's efforts to secure the rights and interests of the handicapped. In 1982, when the United Nations General Assembly designated the ten year period from 1983 to 1992 as the "United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons", the Chinese government accepted its World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons. The China Organizational Committee of the United Nations Decade of Disabled
Persons, with the participation of 22 governmental departments and the China Disabled Persons' Federation, was formed to lead and co-ordinate the work.
In 1987, upon approval by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the Chinese government accepted the Convention Concerning Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons) passed by the International Labour Conference in 1983. Both the government and the organizations of the disabled in China have been praised by the United Nations and the international community for their endeavors and achievements in guaranteeing the human rights of the disabled. In 1988 UN Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar awarded the "Peace Messengers Award" and "Special Award" to China's organizations of the disabled.
X. ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVITIES
China recognizes and respects the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations related to the protection and promotion of human rights. It appreciates and supports the efforts of the UN in promoting universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and takes an active part in UN activities in the human rights field China advocates mutual respect for state sovereignty and maintains that priority should be given to safeguarding of the right people of the developing countries to subsistence and development, thus creating the necessary conditions for people all over the world to enjoy various human rights. China is opposed to interfering i. other countrie: Bucra
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the pretext of human rights and has made unremitting efforts to eliminate various abnormal phenomena and strengthen international cooperation in the field of human rights.
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