President Lee Myung-bak on Monday called for tearing down prejudices about the disabled, saying that their physical challenges never mean they cannot be as competitive as the non-disabled.
"I believe that the disabled can be competitive workers as much as they want, depending on the types of work and duties," Lee said in his biweekly radio address ahead of the April 20 Day for the Disabled, calling for greater job opportunities for the handicapped.
"I hope that there will be more social enterprises where the disabled can demonstrate their capabilities," he said. "Ordinary companies should also break away from their passive attitude of just meeting the minimum requirement of employing the handicapped and be more proactive in creating jobs for them."
Lee recalled visiting a cap factory and seeing how the physically challenged can be good at their work.
"I saw a worker there sorting out defective caps that looked flawless to me," he said. The worker "correctly pinpointed the minute parts that are unable to be discerned unless checked in great detail. A buyer from Japan said he would buy a large amount of caps there, satisfied with the meticulous quality control," he said.
Lee said that the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae also bought caps from the factory not because he had visited there, but because he trusted the quality of its products.
The president also said that one of the things that impressed him the most when visiting advanced foreign nations was that severely disabled people can go out very often thanks to special taxis for them. Lee said that is why he introduced a call taxi system for the disabled when he was the mayor of Seoul.
Lee laid out a series of measures that his government has taken to help the disabled, including the introduction of a pension system for the severely disabled that would allow 80,000 people to newly receive government allowances, and the expansion of various care services for the handicapped.
The government budget for such assistance projects also rose 8 percent from last year, he said.
But the best welfare measure for the disabled would be providing them with jobs, Lee said.
"Many of the handicapped people I met told me that they felt life was worth living and became closer to family members and neighbors while working hard," he said.
Currently, companies that employ 50 people or more are required to fill 2.3 percent of their workforce with the disabled, but the situation is far from satisfactory, Lee said. But what is more important than such a system is to change perceptions about the handicapped, he said.
"I believe that opening the window of our mind is more important than any measures and assistance for the disabled," Lee said. "Though we have to continue efforts for things that can be done with budgets and policies, we have to make further efforts to end prejudices."
