Cuba: The Disabled Right to Life

From Granma Newspaper, Cuba, Sunday May 14, 2000(www.granma.cu).

What most impresses Juana Andrés Cambra of Spain, is the care people with disabilities receive in Cuba. Ms. Cambra is a coordinator for disabled people's issues at the Social Welfare Office in Valencia, Spain.

Ms. Cambra explains that the kind of governmental office she works in does not exist in either the sixteen autonomous communities in the Iberian Peninsula or in Europe. This approach to governmental care is unique only to Sweden and Australia.

Estimates indicate that there are about 560 million people with some kind of disability worldwide. The three fundamental types of human rights these people with disabilities face are: universality, main streaming, and democratization -all defined in the UN Declaration for the Rights of People with Disabilities - are respected in Cuba.

When interviewed by Granma Internacional, Dr. Miriam Escudero, Coordinator of Cuba's Plan de Acción Nacional, a national action plan to coordinate to prioritize the attention given to the people with disabilities, stated that universal access to health and education is warranted based on the rights all the citizens enjoy.

Mainstreaming is warranted because [the disabled] have access to all the rights the general laws describe, just as all citizens do, and therefore can not be discriminated against. In terms of democratization, she said, the disabled participate in the economic, social and political system just as other persons, and they can for example be elected to congress.

The current rate for people with disabilities is between 8 and  10% of the  population, a proportion similar to that in the developed countries.

There is no discrimination, but a special form of protection, answered Dr. Escudero to questions from the Latin American delegates who participated in the 3rd International Conference for People with Disabilities in Havana.

The island's employment program for people with disabilities starts in the mayor's office where those registered receive priority not only in terms of jobs; but also for other materials as free wheelchairs. Also measured is the capacity to function among those born with disabilities so as to enroll them in special education, a network of about 400 centers.

We try to find what do they want to do for a living, said the doctor, and try to look for training courses according to their disability. The main labor market is found in the state industries, then in the 143 special workshops, those who work at home and those who work on their own. The employment policies are common to all, but also carry specific measures to protect them.

If they cannot work because of their condition, they are offered free financial services, medicine and clothing. If they need someone to care for them, the welfare system assigns them someone.

Even when reports vary from country to country because of different understandings of the concept of disabilities, it was recognized that people with some form of disabilities amount to  8 to 10% of the world population. For example, the U.S. includes  diabetics and those using glasses in the figure because the conditions result in a limitation to personal capabilities.

The main need among people with disabilities in Latin America are food and access to education, stated Santiago Velázquez Duarte, Mexican, President of the Organización Mundial de las Personas con Discapacidad en América Latina (World Organization for People with Disabilities in Latin America).

We are at a disadvantage within the competitive labor market. Those who are technically and professionally better prepared perform better and that limits us in our job hunting.

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Inforedu 2000
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