RIGHTS-VIETNAM: Efforts Aim to Boost Jobs for Disabled Workers

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, Feb 3 2004 (IPS) - ”I could not believe my ears when friends told me that I had been offered a job at a foreign-invested company,” 24-year-old Tran Thi Thu said, her voice choked with emotion even though the happy event happened two years earlier.

Partially blind, Thu was one of 100 disabled people hired by Taiwan-based Changshin Co to make shoes under the Nike label at a factory in the southern province of Dong Nai.

”This work was difficult for me at the beginning,” she said. ”However, after the training period I can now do it well.” She described her wage, about 35 U.S. dollars a month, as ”a sum that even normal people would dream of”.

Changshin has led the way as an advocate for the hiring of people with disabilities. It also assists its disabled staff with training programmes, recreational activities on holidays and small loans.

In the northern province of Hai Duong, 20-year-old Bui Thi Do said her life improved after she got a job at Truong Dat, a local manufacturing company.

Do, who was born paralysed and comes from a family of poor peasants, said: ”My parents were very upset when I was born with my disability, and we dreamt that I might one day contribute to the family income.”

She now earns 25 dollars per month as a permanent employee.

Do was introduced to her employer by the local social support centre under a programme launched by non-governmental organisation World Concern to help people with disabilities gain access to work.

World Concern project officer Ha Thanh Long said 32 people with disabilities aged between 13 and 19 have been placed with the Truong Dat Co. ”Their ability to work is good. But the most important thing is to place them in an appropriate job,” Long said.

”Although their salary is not high they have been training and working to make a living by themselves, reducing their dependence on families and others,” he added.

Vietnam has more than five million people living with disabilities and often, they have not found it easy to have work.

To help them, the government has enacted laws requiring companies to hire at least two percent of their workforce from among disabled candidates or donate money to organisations providing services to the handicapped. The laws also grant privileges to companies that hire at least 10 disabled workers and where these workers make up 50 percent of staff.

Many firms remain unaware of the laws, however.

”The laws covering people with disabilities and employment are mostly very good but there have been difficulties implementing them,” said Caitlin Wyndham, manager of the Disability Employment project, a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of Labour and the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA).

”There needs to be more awareness and more promotion of what the laws are so that employers know what their responsibilities are and people with disabilities also know what they are entitled to so they can request work in enterprises,” Wyndham said.

Needed measures, she added, include ”more inspections of work places to see if they are meeting the quota of two percent and more clear guidelines about what local officials should do (and) who is responsible for what”.

Existing regulations also might need to be revised.

Said Nguyen Thi Hai Van, deputy director of MoLISAs job and policy division: ”Under the current regulation, disabled labourers are not allowed to work over seven hours a day or 42 hours a week. This makes employers believe that they will run a loss if they hire disabled people.”

”The regulations should give them (the disabled) the conditions of other workers, but with more incentives for training and improving skills, instead of limiting their working hours,” Van added.

Meanwhile, project officials are trying to increase the number of skilled jobs open to disabled workers.

”Up to now, opportunities have mainly been in low-skilled jobs or in enterprises specifically for people with disabilities, like sheltered workshops,” said Wyndham. ”There have not been many opportunities in mainstream employment.”

MoLISA figures showed that of more than 1.3 million handicapped people trained for employment between 1991 and 2002, some 500,000 learnt manufacturing and technology skills.

”That is starting to change now as more and more employees hire people with disabilities,” said Wyndham.

The Binh Han garment company, for example, works with the Hai Duong Employment Service Centre to provide training in industrial sewing for people with disabilities. The company then hires the graduates.

So far, it has employed 40 people with disabilities and wants to expand that number to 100 by 2005.

”These handicapped employees are hardworking with very high productivity, and are very loyal to the company,” said company director Dang Xuan Ky.