Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2005, published 95th ILC session (2006)

Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons) Convention, 1983 (No. 159) - Russian Federation (Ratification: 1988)

1. National policy on vocational rehabilitation and employment of persons with disabilities. The Committee notes the detailed information and the statistical data provided by the Government in its report for the period ending in September 2005. It notes that the direct federal budget expenditure to tackle the problems faced by people with disabilities has risen, amounting to 31.6 billion roubles in 2004. The average amount of federal budgetary funds spent on one person with disabilities thus rose from 1,741 roubles in 2001 to 2,772 roubles in 2004. The Government however indicates that, despite the measures that have been taken, the overall number of persons with disabilities grew from 6.3 million in 1995 to 11.4 million in 2004, of which 613,000 are children. According to the Government, this rise is largely due to a high level of illness in the population, a large number of road accidents, injuries and incidents of poisoning and the Russian Federation’s difficult socio-economic situation. As a consequence of the difficult social and economic conditions, the proportion of people with disabilities who were in employment continued to fall throughout the 1990s and now amounts to 14.8 per cent of all persons with disabilities of working age.

2. The Government indicates that the new version of the federal Act on social protection of the disabled provides that quotas for the employment of people with disabilities shall be established in workplaces with more than 100 workers (the limit in the previous Act was 30 workers). Thus, as of 1 January 2005, regional legislation establishes a quota for the employment of workers with disabilities as a percentage of the total number of workers (no less than 2 per cent and no more than 4 per cent). The Committee further notes that, in 2004, 9,700 persons with disabilities enrolled in vocational training (as compared to 6,500 in 2003) and nearly 148,000 persons with disabilities benefited from vocational guidance services. The Committee asks the Government to continue to provide information on the impact of the measures that have been adopted, the progress achieved and the difficulties encountered to promote the vocational rehabilitation and employment of people with disabilities (Article 3 of the Convention). It also asks the Government to indicate the manner in which representative employers’ and workers’ organizations of and for persons with disabilities are consulted on the matters covered by the Convention (Article 5).