Inclusion: Hardly any progress in the last 14 years
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Organizations for the disabled demonstrate in the city of Salzburg on Wednesday for better conditions. Although Austria signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 14 years ago, little has changed in practice – for example in the teaching of children with disabilities.
The demonstration was organized by Lebenshilfe Salzburg. Regarding the main demands of the demonstrators, Lebenshilfe managing director Guido Güntert says: “We demand the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was ratified by Austria in 2008. We would like to point out that large parts of the convention have still not been implemented. A central topic, for example, is education policy.”
“We still don’t have an inclusive education system, meaning that people with and without possibly sit together at school together quite automatically and accordingly start life together. When it comes to employment relationships that are subject to social security contributions, we are still lagging behind and we do not have equal rights for people with all other Austrians in our country. There is still a lot to do,” says Güntert.
Demand for nationwide uniform law
He sees the state, but above all the federal government, as having a duty to act. “It would be very important that federalism, which is particularly common among the people we support, comes to an end in Austria. We still have nine state laws for people with disabilities in nine federal states, which provide for different services and different support services. Here the federal government should say very clearly: these are Austrians, an Austrian law applies to them and that has been implemented.”