Institutions for persons with disabilities
to enter the employment market with all their potential and skills. Furthermore,
the legal health and pension insurance of those in occupational therapy
workshops should be made possible by specifying them as insurable activities.
New remuneration models instead of the existing “pocket money system”
shall be examined.
The government programme 2020–2024 presented in January 2020
contains several passages that vaguely promise the implementation of the
recommendations of the NPM. The programme emphasises that there will be a
special focus on inclusion in the employment market as well as remuneration
instead of pocket money for persons with disabilities in future. Furthermore,
there will no longer be an “automatic” determination of incapacity for work
at least for those under 24 years of age. If, how and when it will be possible to
effectively improve the situation of all those affected is currently unforeseeable
for the NPM. A change of paradigm is necessary to this end. The federal and
regional laws of the Austrian legal system do not use a uniform legal term of
“disability”. The medical view of “incapacity for work”, which has dominated
to date, is not compliant with the UNCRC because it sees disabilities as
congenital or acquired abnormal deficits that must be broadly accepted as
irreversible. Discussion of the AOB special report in all legislative bodies
should support the implementation of central demands and underline the fact
that the potential that persons with disabilities can and want to contribute is
underestimated.
Implementation
announced in the
government programme
An easy-to-read version of the special report was created to also enable
persons with learning difficulties to find out more about the work of the AOB
and its commissions and inform themselves about legal barriers that directly
affect them. The Federal Government will be measured by the NPM based on
the intentions included in the government programme and it remains to be
seen whether actual significant progress is made towards inclusion and selfdetermination by involving self-representation.
Reduce the risk of
poverty and provide
access to education
The government programme 2020–2024 also includes the intention to
minimise the risk of poverty for children and adolescents with disabilities.
Regulations regarding maintenance obligations in the Austrian Civil Code
(Allgemeines bürgerliches Gesetzbuch) in the area of persons with disabilities
should also be revised. The NPM is emphatic that there is much catching up
to do here. In Austria, the political agenda for disability-related matters is
usually a peripheral matter. As interdisciplinary topics, the relevant range of
issues always covers securing a livelihood and health, integration (education,
employment) to equality. Particularly in times when issues such as savings in
the social welfare area and emphasis on the responsibility of the individual
dominate the political landscape, state support must be structured in a
way that precludes discriminatory effects. Charity events and fundraising
campaigns for the benefit of persons with disabilities will never be a substitute
for human-rights-based policies. The commissions regularly stress that, above
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