Hiring Bias, Harassment of Disabled Organizations Undermine Laws
Despite recent positive steps, discrimination against persons with disabilities continues in China and organizations for the disabled face government pressure and harassment, Human Rights Watch said today on the eve of the September 6 Paralympic Games in Beijing.

“The Chinese government deserves praise for enacting laws and ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “But so far these protections have meant little to persons with disabilities and their advocates in China who struggle to promote their rights and, in particular, to fairly compete for employment.”

The Chinese government has in recent years enacted a variety of new laws including the Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons, Regulations on the Education of Persons with Disabilities, and the Regulations on Employment of Persons with Disabilities, which on paper provide impressive protections of the rights of China’s estimated 82.7 million persons with disabilities. Human Rights Watch applauded the Chinese government’s August 1, 2008, ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Human Rights Watch said that the new laws have not ended discriminatory employment practices. In June 2007, shocking images of workers who had been held in slave-like conditions in Shanxi brick kilns were published; many of the workers proved to have mental disabilities. Over the next two months, authorities endeavored to free 1,340 people from similar working conditions in kilns, mines, and other forced labor situations. In August 2007, the State Council, China’s cabinet, announced that 367 of those freed had mental disabilities, underscoring that this population remains highly vulnerable to such exploitation.
Link to HRW