Kazakhstan Embraces New Name to Describe People with Disabilities

Kazakhstan plans to replace the word ‘invalid,’ which is considered discriminatory these days, with the more correct term «person with a disability.» The initiative has been announced today by Erlan Aukenov, a vice minister of labor and social protection of the population in Kazakhstan.

While speaking at the briefing for media, Aukenov told journalists about amendments to the law on social protection of some groups of citizens and revealed new draft law on disabled people. 

«Currently, our government is reviewing a new draft law initiated by Senat (upper chamber of Kazakhstan’s parliament). The document suggests replacing the word ‘invalid’ with the new official term ‘person with disabilities.’ It means any family that is raising a child with disabilities would receive special status,» he said.

There is no status of «family raising a child with disabilities» in Kazakhstan at the moment. Now lawmakers want these families to get the status along with an opportunity to visit sanitariums all over the country free of charge.

«The draft law is full of novelties and we are going to discuss all of them in the parliament,» Aukenov added.

Recently, Senat, the upper chamber of the parliament, has already approved new social security benefits for more than 30,000 children with disabilities; these have been raised to 37%. In total, there are about 88,000 underage persons with disabilities in the country; all families that raise them have gotten their social security payments regularly.