Fewer disabled people still living in poverty

The number of disabled people living in extreme poverty was slashed to around 480,000 by the end of last year, a significant decline compared with more than 7 million in late 2013, according to the China Disabled Persons' Federation on Tuesday.

Last year alone saw 1.2 million disabled people lifted out of poverty, the federation said in a media release.

The developments came as China works to end absolute poverty before the end of the year.

China's rural poor, which stood at just under 99 million in late 2012, was slashed to 5.51 million as of last year.

But the poverty relief effort remains arduous as nearly half the remaining poor are seniors or people with diseases or disabilities, making it hard for them to escape poverty through conventional relief projects.

The figures offered by the federation show that one-third of impoverished families have members with disabilities.

The challenges were magnified by the ongoing novel coronavirus outbreak, which has prevented workers from reaching jobs and led to poor sales of farm produce.

To mitigate the influence, the federation said it has launched an operation alongside the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development to promote the employment of disabled people and to help them with the sales of farm produce.

The federation said it will also see to it that disabled workers are protected against the coronavirus.

Zhou Changkui, director-general of the federation, said at a teleconference involving the three departments on Tuesday that efforts will be made to prevent those who have escaped poverty from sliding back due to the outbreak, and to meet their demand for rehabilitation service and better accessibility at home.

To make sure no one is left behind, he said federation officials would be sent to six provincial regions with more than 30,000 disabled people to supervise the operation.