Skip navigation links Sitemap | About us | FAQs

UN Programme on Disability   Working for full participation and equality

 

Article 28 - Adequate standard of living and social protection
Background Documents | Article 28 Background
Seventh Session | Sixth Session | Fourth Session | Third Session
Working Group | References

References

 

Disability-specific instruments

 

Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities
Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, forty-eighth session, resolution 48/96, annex, of 20 December 1993

 

 

Rule 8 - Income maintenance and social security


States are responsible for the provision of social security and income maintenance for persons with disabilities.


• States should ensure the provision of adequate income support to persons with disabilities who, owing to disability or disability-related factors, have temporarily lost or received a reduction in their income or have been denied employment opportunities. States should ensure that the provision of support takes into account the costs frequently incurred by persons with disabilities and their families as a result of the disability.
• In countries where social security, social insurance or other social welfare schemes exist or are being developed for the general population, States should ensure that such systems do not exclude or discriminate against persons with disabilities.


• States should also ensure the provision of income support and social security protection to individuals who undertake the care of a person with a disability.


• Social security systems should include incentives to restore the income-earning capacity of persons with disabilities. Such systems should provide or contribute to the organization, development and financing of vocational training. They should also assist with placement services.


• Social security programmes should also provide incentives for persons with disabilities to seek employment in order to establish or re-establish their income-earning capacity.


• Income support should be maintained as long as the disabling conditions remain in a manner that does not discourage persons with disabilities from seeking employment. It should only be reduced or terminated when persons with disabilities achieve adequate and secure income.


• States, in countries where social security is to a large extent provided by the private sector, should encourage local communities, welfare organizations and families to develop self-help measures and incentives for employment or employment-related activities for persons with disabilities.


World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons
Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, thirty-seventh session, Resolution 37/52 of 3 December 1982


Income maintenance and social security


Every Member State should work towards the inclusion, within its systems of laws and regulations, of provisions covering the general and supporting objectives of the World Programme of Action referring to social security.


Member States should ensure that disabled persons have equal opportunities to obtain all forms of income, maintenance thereof, and social security. Such a process should take place in forms adjusted to the economic system and degree of development of the Member State.


Where social security, social insurance and other such systems exist for the general population, they should be reviewed to make certain that adequate benefits and services for prevention, rehabilitation and the equalization of opportunities are provided for disabled persons and their families and that regulations under these systems, whether applicable to services providers or the services recipients, should not exclude or discriminate against such persons. The establishment and the development of a public system of social care and of industrial safety and health protection constitute essential prerequisites for achieving the aims set.


Easily accessible arrangements should be made by which disabled persons and their families can appeal, through impartial hearing, against decisions concerning their rights and benefits in this field.





Home | Sitemap | About us | FAQs | Contact us

© United Nations, 2006
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Division for Social Policy and Development