Germany's Disabled Continue to Face an Uphill Battle

Disabled people in Germany continue to face discrimination and are the most affected by unemployment. That's what leading German politicians said Monday on the occasion of the 9th annual International Day of Disabled Persons.

The country’s social minister said disabled are the most affected by Germany’s rising unemployment, which will climb past 4 million this week. About 15.8 percent of the disabled population is unemployed, said Minister Walter Riester, of the Social Democratic party.

He called for equal treatment in the workplace and praised the skills disabled people bring with them.

“People who are handicapped, are enormously competent and enrichen the workplace,” Riester said.

The remarks came as disabled organizations across Germany held protests and called on government officials to improve access to buildings and work on laws enforcing equal treatment of disabled people. The German government unveiled such a law last month, calling for “barrier free” access to all buildings.

Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin went a step further on Monday. She proposed a law that allows those discriminated against, including the disabled, to seek financial compensation if their rights are not observed. To give the law some weight, Däubler-Gmelin said that the burden of proof would be put on the suspected offender.

The laws take on special meaning in light of recent statisctics from the Social Ministry showing that every 12th German will suffer some sort of handicap at some time in their life. More than half of those affected, will become handicapped while they are still of working age. Riester said those people should not be marginalized.

“It’s fatal to remove someone of their skills that they’ve spent a long time learning, just because they’ve suffered some sort of an accident or sickness,” Riester said.

Disabled organizations have said the plight of handicapped people has taken an alarming twist with the advances made in genetical research. Many are concerned that the tendency to abort fetuses that are disabled will affect the social treatment of those living with a disability, said former health minister Andrea Fischer.

"The more acceptable it becomes to deny a disabled life, the more dangerous it is for disabled people not to be accepted," Fischer said.