Disabled still unwanted in the workplace, federation says

China's 83 million disabled citizens face discrimination in the workplace, the head of the Beijing Disabled Persons' Federation said yesterday.

Speaking ahead of the Paralympics, which open on Saturday, federation director general Zhao Chunluan said some discriminating company bosses deliberately broke the employment laws - preferring to pay fines than hire workers with disabilities.

'Some companies argue they do not want to hire those with disabilities on the grounds that there are still a lot of healthy people, or even university students, waiting for jobs,' Ms Zhao said on the sideline of a press conference on the Olympic Green to promote Beijing's disability policies.

'Enterprises are required by law to hire the disabled, otherwise they have to face fines and other kinds of punishments,' she said. 'But some firms prefer to pay the fines rather than hire disabled people.'

Ms Zhao said such 'people are only a minor proportion of the society', and the 'mainstream' society did not hold prejudices.

'I have repeated many times that people do want to understand the disabled, but that they are ignorant of their condition. Chinese society itself is not inhumane. But our society is not fully informed of the disabled people's suffering,' she said.