Disabled Faced With Lower Social Benefits

The main problem of disabled persons in Turkey is to prove that they're disabled, says Bülent Küçükarslan from the engelliler.biz platform, which provides a venue for voicing demands of his peers.

"With the regulatory change in 2006, the disabled could benefit from certain rights only if they are given a 40 percent disability of service report from the hospitals. In a moment, hundreds of thousands of people were striped from benefits. For example, before 2006 a person without one eye were given a 41 percent disability report but now, its 25 percent. There're 900 thousand people in this condition only."

Küçükaslan said they have met with authorities from the Treasury and the Ministry of Social Security and Labor but couldn't get any feedback.

Another urgent issue is employment of disabled persons. Despite a 3 percent quota by law, most public institutions refrain from employing the disabled. According to Küçükarslan, there are 40 thousand job spots for the disabled this year but only 150 people are hired currently.

Moreover, the state moved to force the disabled into an impossible choice. They're to give up either their own pension or the pension given to caretakers. Currently, a disabled person gets between 530 and 870 TL for three months and a relative is given 470 TL for care giving.(EZÖ/AGÜ)