#disabled population

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[edgekz]

Kazakhstan Making Strides in Disability Access, Acceptance

By Michelle Witte

Kazakhstan began 2015 by ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Jan. 20, the most recent and potentially most important in a series of steps taken since independence to improve the lives of the country’s disabled population.

The ratification of the convention “will provide the 627,000 disabled persons living in Kazakhstan, and their families, additional guarantees of enjoyment and protection of their constitutional rights and freedoms,” the Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development said in a statement on the ratification.

Coming out of the shadows

Kazakhstan’s disabled population has been slowly coming out of hiding since independence. “I think the main point is that people see us through media,” Saduakassov said. “In Soviet times, only in the 1980s did people have an opportunity to see people with disabilities during the Paralympic Games. Before that, it was all hidden.” (During the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, a Soviet representative famously said “There are no invalids in the USSR” in response to a question from a Western journalist on whether the Soviet Union would take part in the first Paralympic Games scheduled to be held in the U.K. later that year.)

Read more:http://www.edgekz.com/kazakhstan-making-strides-in-disability-access-acceptance/