table of contents - home page - text-only home page Governance and Legislation briefly Japan Reviews Laws Barring Disabled Persons from Various Professions Last year the Government of Japan began a review of 63 laws and regulations barring disabled persons from obtaining licenses in a variety of professions. The purpose of the review is to abolish or revise these strictures. Most recently, an advisory panel began work in December to revise laws that prevent disabled people from working as medical professionals. The Council for Those Engaged in Medical Service is considering revisions of the Medical Practitioners Law and other laws regulating dentists, nurses and midwives, so that disabled people can obtain licenses to practice these occupations. Current laws designate people with hearing, vision, speech and mental disabilities as barred from obtaining medical licenses, regardless of the degree of severity of disability. The panel also recommended that medical schools undertake changes and renovations on the assumptions that in the future people with disabilities will be studying at these facilities. Details from Japan Times Online: www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.p15?nn20001208a3.htm India to Include Disability Questions in 2001 Census India's Commissioner of the National Population Census announced in October a decision to include a question to elicit information on the disability status of citizens. The Census, to be carried out in February 2001, will be the first in India to cover disability since the census of 1981. Question #15 will be designed to gather information about people with various degrees of vision, speech, hearing, movement and mental disabilities. Disability specialists consider this approach a vast improvement over the 1981 question, which collected information about only three categories of disability and excluded information about those with partial disability. In a workshop in New Delhi in October to explain the approach, the Commissioner emphasized the differences between a Census and a Survey and the necessity of keeping the Census definitions simple to facilitate the process of enumeration. The workshop was organized by the National Center for Promotion of Employment of Disabled People, in association with the Ashoka Innovators for the Public and the Spastic Society of Northern India. Details online: www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/10/06/stories/0206000w.htm Disability in Russia Reportedly on Increase Reports from Russia are that the number of disabled people there has nearly doubled in the last six years. According to a new statement by the First Deputy Prime Minister, Valentina Matviyenko, the estimated total is now approaching 10 million or one of every 15 men, women and children. The Deputy suggested that the increases were due to a decline in preventative medical care, a rise in accidents caused by aging industries, and a rise in local conflicts. Details were featured in a recent article online at: www.ican.com/news British Legislative Experts Call for a New Approach to Enforcement of Anti-Discrimination Legislation A study conducted by British legal experts calls for a single UK Equality Act, bringing together the existing anti-discrimination legislation in relation to race, gender and disability, but adding among others, age and sexual orientation as new grounds of discrimination. Published in July, the study results from an independent review of the UK's anti-discrimination legislation, carried out by the Cambridge Centre for Public Law and the Judge Institute of Management Studies. The review argues that changes are needed because the present framework places too much emphasis on inconsistent state regulation and not enough on the responsibility of organizations and individuals to develop business plans to widen access and diversity. The study also proposes a Human Rights Commission with responsibility to promote human rights, including advising individuals of their rights under the Human Rights Act. It suggests that anti-discrimination measures should be augmented by positive duties to promote equality based on persuasion, information and voluntary action plans. Regarding the already adopted Disability Discrimination Act, the study also made recommendations, including the introduction of the concept of indirect discrimination. Further details about the study are available online from www.radar.org.uk table of contents - home page - text-only home page