First Lady Leila Ben Ali, Chairwoman of the Arab Women Organisation (AWO), Monday delivered a speech to the opening works of the International Conference entitled " Together for the Promotion of Employment and Protection of Categories with Specific Needs." Here is the full text of the speech: "In the Name of God, Merciful and Compassionate, Your Excellency Dr. Abdualziz Altwaijri, Director General of ISESCO, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to open, by the grace of God, the International Conference "Together for the Promotion of Employment and Protection of Categories with Special Needs." I take this opportunity to convey my greetings and consideration to their Excellencies, to the representatives of regional and international organisations and non-governmental organisations, as well as to experts and researchers. To all of them, I would like to extend a warm welcome, wishing them a pleasant stay in our country.
Special thanks are due to ISESCO and its Director General Dr. Abdulaziz Altwaijri, for his initiative to hold this conference jointly with the "Basma" Association for the Promotion of the Disabled Employment as part of the celebration of International Day of People with Disability, which coincides with the international community's commemoration of the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Abdulaziz Altwaijri for his kind words toward our country and its leadership and toward the BASMA Association for the Promotion of the Disabled Employment, and for awarding me the Golden Shield of this Conference.
I wish to express my gratitude and appreciation to HH Sultan Bin Fahd Bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud, Chairman of the Union of Arab National Olympic Committees, for awarding me the Shield of the Union and for the lofty feelings he expressed toward Tunisia, its people and its leadership as well as toward the BASMA Association for the Promotion of the Disabled Employment in the text addressed by His Highness to our Conference and which Professor Mohamed Othman Al-Saad, Adviser to His Highness and Secretary-General of the Union of Arab National Olympic Committees, has kindly read to us. Special tribute is also due to Dr. Ali Mahmoud Bouhedma, President of the Islamic Committee of the International Crescent, for his kind words in praise of the Tunisian experience in terms of care for and employment of persons with specific needs, and for awarding me the Golden Shield of this Committee.
Ladies and Gentlemen,The choice of the topic "Together for the Promotion of Employment and Protection of Categories with Specific Needs" as a theme for this conference confirms the international community's awareness of the need to join efforts so as to protect the disabled and help them overcome their disability and meet the challenge of employment.
Convinced that work is a fundamental human right, an attribute of dignity, and a means of livelihood, self-sufficiency and well-being, we believe that disability does not prevent disabled persons from enjoying their rights and obtaining a job that corresponds to their mental and physical capacities.
The intellectual, social and developmental progress of societies is indeed the platform that allows to promote the quality of addressing the issue of employment of disabled persons, especially as regards offering them all the medical, psychological, social and professional assistance they need. I would like to point out, in this context, that since the Change of November 7, 1987, Tunisia has adopted a social policy based on protecting our human resources, safeguarding their dignity and enhancing their capacities in all fields, while ensuring equal opportunities for all social categories, rejecting all forms of neglect, exclusion and marginalisation, curbing poverty, providing sources of income for the needy and spreading the culture of solidarity and materialising it at all levels and in all fields.
This choice finds its illustration in the care provided to persons with specific needs as part of a comprehensive, fair and balanced national human rights approach that guarantees for all citizens the means for prevention, care and integration as well as for sound health, education and decent living.
During the past decade, a set of programmes was adopted aimed in particular at promoting medical coverage and preventive medicine, further controlling the propagation of infectious diseases, especially at birth and acquired disability, fighting newly-emerging scourges and consolidating the mechanisms for monitoring them and facing their risks.
Our country has also established a coherent legislative system involving measures, mechanisms and laws that enable persons with specific needs to join working life and undertake professional activities that correspond to their physical and mental capacities, away from all forms of discrimination. The Guidance Law of 2005 concerning the promotion and protection of disabled persons lends best support to this policy. It guarantees the rights of disabled persons in terms of prevention, care and integration in educational, professional, cultural and sports contexts. It provides for devoting at least 3% of training posts in public vocational training centres to disabled persons and, if need be, for adapting the training post so that it fit the needs of the disabled person. This law also provides for a specific education and adequate rehabilitation for disabled persons who are incapable of joining the ordinary system of education. On the other hand, the law guarantees for disabled persons at least 1% of recruitments every year. It also requires public and private enterprises that employ a certain number of employees and workers to set aside 1% of the positions for disabled persons. The law provides for a package of alternatives in case direct recruitment is not possible: distance work for the employer, work as part of the workforce sub-enterprise, acquiring products from the self-employed disabled persons, or acquiring products from the centres coming under associations concerned with the disabled.
To encourage the recruitment of disabled persons, the State offers enterprises that employ a disabled person a total or partial exemption from the employer's social security contributions.
The State is also keen on giving disabled persons more opportunities for self-employment. It bears their social security contributions and offers them access to a significant share of the interventions of the National Employment Fund and the Tunisian Solidarity Bank.
Tunisia has played an active role in the second global forum on disability held on the occasion of the world summit on the information society which took place in Tunis in 2005.
The summit declaration stressed the need for all stakeholders, at the national, regional and international levels, to step up efforts so as to establish a genuine information society that encompasses the category of the disabled at all levels, especially as regards communication and information services.
It is up to the concerned parties and specialised organisations to act for facilitating the disabled persons' access to and benefit from these services; thereby offering this social category promising prospects in terms of education and training.
Tunisia ratified the two international conventions concerning the training and employment of disabled persons: the International Labour Convention No.142 concerning vocational guidance and vocational training in the development of human resources, and the International Labour Convention No.159 concerning vocational rehabilitation and employment of disabled persons.
Tunisia was also among the first countries to ratify in April 2008 the International Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, along with its optional Protocol. The programme of H.E president Zine el ABidine BEn Ali for the coming five-year-term (2009-2014) includes numerous objectives to further enhance disability prevention programmes, improve the services provided to the disabled, and promote the system of education and training specific to them, which will provide all opportunities and possibilities to integrate categories with specific needs within socio-economic life.
On its part, The BASMA Association for the promotion of employment for the disabled endeavours to provide care to this social category, enhance the know-how of the disabled, and consolidate their ability to rely, as much as possible, on themselves to join professional life according to their mental and physical qualifications, and based on the manual and technical know-how they have received so as to be able to join the job market.
Our association also seeks to develop the methods of protection of the disabled and to enhance their sense of initiative through intensifying actions of assistance and support at all phases of the establishment of their professional projects, from the phase of training to that of integration in salaried or independent work.
Our association also helps disabled craftsmen to market their products, and encourages them to participate in all fairs and commercial events in their field of specialisation.
Our association also contributes to raising the national public opinion's awareness of the importance of giving all due attention to disability and its prevention and treatment, and the need to provide care to the disabled and offer them adequate conditions so that they achieve integration in their society and exercise their works and activities.
Ladies and Gentlemen,Providing comprehensive and continuous care to persons with specific needs is an imperative duty.
The State's structures and civil society components share roles in the accomplishment of this duty, so that no social category remains inactive in socio-economic life, and so that all citizens are offered opportunities to have a decent life, secure their sources of income, and enhance the process of development in their country.
No doubt, the protection of persons with specific needs is an ethical, religious and humanitarian duty through which the members of a given society materialise the values of cooperation, harmony, and solidarity, and promote virtues that are closely linked to society's balance and stability.
In fact, no equitable development can be achieved in any society without offering equal opportunities for decent life to all its categories.
We are convinced that one of the urgent initiatives that our society needs to take in this regard consists in promoting the treatment of the issues of categories with special needs from the phase of indiviudal effrot based, most of the time, on a sense of charity and humanitarian action, to the phase of institutional collective effort based on care and integration, a responsibility commonly shared by the State and civil socitey components. Health and psychological care is a fundamental phase in the protection of this social category.
It is time to move on from this phase to another equally important one that of training and rehabilitation, so as to open up for persons with specific needs wide prospects to acquire capacities that facilitate their integration in their socio-economic environment, and strengthens their confidence in themselves, in their abilities and in their society.
Ladies and Gentlemen,Our present conference offers a propitious opportunity for all participants to exchange expertise and experiences concerning the ways and means to promote the employment of persons with specific needs, coordinate efforts for the protection of this social category, and establish the mechanisms that consolidate our co-operation and the complementarity of our roles in this field, in conformity with the relevant international conventions and declarations.
I suggest, in this context, the establishment of an annual international prize to be awarded to the best local association specialised in health and social action, which distinguishes itself through the integration of the largest number of persons with specific needs in working life.
I am convinced that the recommendations that will come out of this conference will consolidate international efforts targeting persons with specific needs, and will help improve the services provided to them and promote the methods of their integration.
To conclude, I once again welcome you to Tunisia, wishing all success to your conference."
© Tunisia Online News 2009
