Belarus to adopt bill on rights of people with disabilities by year-end

The Belarusian government expects the parliament to adopt the bill “On the rights of people with disabilities and their social integration” by the end of 2021, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Petrishenko said at a joint meeting of the House of Representatives and the Council of the Republic on 19 May, BelTA has learned. The official hailed the progress in the execution of the national action plan to implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the consistency of these efforts.“The government always keeps an eye on problems of people with disabilities. At present, there are more than 564,000 such persons in Belarus (6% of the population), 34,500 of whom are underage,” Igor Petrishenko noted. Most activities to improve the current legislation envisaged in the national plan were taken into account in the bill “On the rights of people with disabilities and their social integration”. “On 4 June 2020, the bill passed the first reading in the House of Representatives. We expect the parliament to adopt the bill by the end of the year,” Igor Petrishenko added.