Citizens with disabilities experience racism, prejudice and indifference from the state and are faced with serious social, cognitive and structural barriers that cause painful delays in the process of examining their applications for social benefits, allowances and financial assistance absolutely necessary for their livelihood. the Cyprus Confederation of Disabled People's Organizations (KYSOA).
In its announcement today, KYSOA states that these are mainly due to the incompatibility of the Minimum Guaranteed Income Legislation with the International Human Rights Conventions, the indifference and the organizational deficits that are observed as well as the deficiencies that are accessible and difficult to access. and the time-consuming procedures followed by those in charge and, above all, the provocative tolerance and hypocrisy of the political leaders of the relevant government agencies about the intolerable situation that has prevailed in recent years on disability issues.
“As a result, many people with disabilities with very low incomes and no property, the poorest of the poorest citizens in our country, in addition to their permanent exclusion from the community and the insult to their dignity on a permanent basis, stay for months. “or even years without any income, with disastrous consequences for the standard of living and the gradual destruction of the present and the future of them and their family”, emphasizes KYSOA.
“Prisoners of these policies are people with disabilities who have applied for more than three years and are subject to unprecedented suffering and humiliation of their dignity: documents that have already been submitted and are repeatedly lost are requested, the applicant's status is misjudged and living conditions, applications are rejected before they are even considered and there is no response to citizens' efforts to find out what stage they are at, and in many cases their benefits are terminated without any information, or even leave life without ever having received any response to their request.
The movement of people with disabilities considers that the time has come for citizens with disabilities to be freed from the anachronistic policies and practices of the Minimum Guaranteed Income that blatantly violate human rights abuses and their fundamental freedoms Minimum Guaranteed Income Legislation with provisions and procedures that respect disabled citizens and constitute a genuine network for the protection of these rights and those of their families, including clear procedures, including the termination of examination of the applications, taking into account the serious errors of the Service against them, the bureaucracy and the obstacles that exist due to the pandemic, providing the possibility of monitoring and controlling the progress of the application, establishing channels of direct communication with the competent In addition, the Catalytic Intervention of the Parliamentary Committee on Labor, Welfare and Social Security to the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security and Welfare, respectively, is requested, with the aim of taking immediate correct and effective measures. to end the unjustified humiliating delays in the examination of citizens' applications and, consequently, the long-term withholding of social benefits, sponsorships and allowances that rightfully belong to citizens with disabilities, so as not to jeopardize the standard of living and the “the lives of these individuals and their families themselves and not to be increasingly driven into poverty, social exclusion and impoverishment,” said the Cyprus Confederation of Disabled Organizations.
