Remarks at the High-level Meeting: Equal Access, Inclusive Development

特别顾问：朱迪思•休曼（Judith Heumann）

在亚太经合组织领导人周高官会上的讲话：

均等机会与包容性发展

Thank you, and I would like to thank in particular the Chinese Disabled Persons’ Federation for hosting today’s event. It is a great honor to be with you today, at what I hope will be the start of a robust, substantive, and on-going dialogue on promoting truly equal access and inclusive development for persons with disabilities throughout APEC member economies. Achieving progress will require sustained engagement, and I would also like to congratulate China for its leadership in developing a Group of Friends to continue this important conversation in the months and years ahead.

谢谢。我要特别感谢举办今天活动的中国残疾人联合会。能参加今天的活动，我感到很荣幸。我希望今天的活动能在亚太经合组织经济体国家之间，就促进残疾人获得真正均等的机会和包容性发展这个主题，启动健康、务实和持续的对话。要取得进展就需要持续的接触。我也想祝贺中国在为将来继续这一重要对话而建立“朋友群”方面所发挥的领导作用。

I’d like to focus my remarks this morning on securing equal opportunities in education and employment for persons with disabilities. There is no denying that for our economies to achieve their full potential, we must draw upon the contributions of all our peoples, and this must include the fifteen or more percent of our populations that live with various forms of disabilities.

今天上午，我主要想谈谈如何确保残疾人在教育和就业方面获得均等的机会。不可否认，要想发挥我们经济的全部潜力，必须依靠全体人民的贡献，而且这必然包括占我们总人口15%左右的各类残障人士。

But before contemplating the path ahead, I want to take a moment to reflect upon the road the United States has travelled these last few decades. As a child, I, like more than 1 million other American children with disabilities, did not have the benefit of attending inclusive schools. Although access to quality education is critical to an individual’s future employment prospects, we were not allowed to attend school. I was nine years old before I went to school and even then I was placed in classes only for disabled children. Although I later attended university and earned my Bachelor’s degree, levels of inaccessibility prevalent at that time are no longer permitted in our universities. It was clear at that time in the 1950s that employment was not something our government anticipated we would have. When I applied for my first job as a teacher, I was initially denied my certification simply because I could not walk. I went to court and sued the Board of Education to obtain my certificate to teach, and finally did get a job teaching elementary school children.

但在设想未来的走向之前，我想花一点时间回顾一下美国在过去几十年走过的路。在我小时候，我和其他超过一百万的美国残障儿童一样，没有就读全纳性学校的机会。尽管获得有质量的教育对于个人未来的就业前景至关重要，但是我们并不能上学。我直到九岁才入学，而且上的是专为残疾儿童开设的班级。尽管我后来考上了大学，而且获得学士学位，但是当年那种机会不均等的普遍现象在我们的大学早已不被允许。显然，在上个世纪50年代，我们的政府并没有预料到我们能够就业。当我申请第一份教师工作时，仅仅因为我无法走路而无法得到教师证。我上法院起诉了教育委员会，最后终于获得一份在小学教书的工作。

Today, I am proud to say that such blatant forms of discrimination are no longer legal in the United States. With strong federal legislation and effective enforcement by the federal and state government agencies, a knowledgeable and active disability rights community playing a key role, and more than four decades of experience, Americans with all kinds of disabilities are attending educational institutions, including universities, and getting jobs in the public and private sector to a degree unprecedented in our history. However, that does not mean our work is done. Far from it. We now collect data on the unemployment rate of disabled people and know that the rate of unemployment for disabled people is higher than that of non-disabled people. We still have a long way to go to ensure that all persons with disabilities can enjoy meaningful careers, economic self-sufficiency for ourselves and our families, and the sense of purpose and self-worth that can come from work freely chosen, undertaken in workplaces that are respectful and support us in maximizing our contributions.

今天，我可以很骄傲地说，这种公然的歧视行为在美国已不合法。由于强有力的联邦立法和联邦及州政府机构的有效执行，以及知识渊博而且行动积极的残疾人权益社团发挥关键作用，再加上超过40多年的经验，美国所有的残障人士都可以就读包括大学在内的教育机构，在公立或私营领域的就业程度也达到空前水平。然而，这并不意味着我们的工作就此结束。我们所做的还远远不够。我们现在收集残疾人失业率数据，发现残疾人失业率高于健全人。我们还有很多工作要做，以确保所有残疾人都能拥有有意义的职业、在经济上自给自足并养得起家人、通过自由选择工作获得自我实现和自我价值感，以及在尊重残疾人和支持残疾人做出最大贡献的工作场合工作。

As recently noted by President Obama in his proclamation for our National Disability Employment Awareness Month, “When employees with disabilities are passed over in the workplace or denied fair accommodations, it limits their potential and threatens our democracy; when disproportionate numbers of Americans with disabilities remain unemployed, more work must be done to achieve the spirit of what is one of the most comprehensive civil rights bills in the history of our country;” the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

正如欧巴马总统最近在宣布“全国残疾人就业意识月”（National Disability Employment Awareness Month）时的讲话所指出的，“当残障员工在工作场合被忽略或无法获得公平的待遇时，他们的潜力将会受到限制，而我们的民主也会受到威胁；在不成比例的残障美国人仍然失业之际，我们必须更加努力以实现我国历史上最全面的公民权利法案中所倡导的精神；”亦即《美国残疾人法》。

This work begins with strong leadership by government, private sector, and civil society. The U.S. federal government has sought to be a leader in the employment arena by increasing the number of persons with disabilities within its own ranks. In 2010, President Obama issued Executive Order 13548, which calls upon federal government departments and agencies to improve recruitment, hiring, retention, and advancement of persons with disabilities. Government agencies developed plans and published statistics on progress toward achieving the goals of the Executive Order. In 2012, total permanent employment in the federal government for persons with disabilities had increased to 11.89%, with more people with disabilities in federal service both in real terms and by percentage than at any time in the past 32 years.

这项工作始于政府、私营部门和公民社会的强力领导。美国联邦政府通过增加内部雇佣残疾员工的人数，致力成为该领域的领导者。2010年，欧巴马总统发布了第13548号行政命令，呼吁联邦政府部门和机构改善对残障人士的招聘、雇佣、保留和发展。政府部门就如何实现行政令中设定的目标制定计划并公布数据。到2012年，联邦政府永久性雇佣残障人士的总体比例增至11.89%，使得残疾人在联邦政府中从业的总数或者比例都比过去32年要高。

The key U.S. enforcement of disability rights protections in the workplace is carried out by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Labor. Together, these three agencies enforce federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against qualified job applicants or employees because of those individuals’ disabilities, history of disability, appearance of disability, or association with someone with a disability. The law requires an employer to provide reasonable accommodation to an employee or job applicant with a disability, unless doing so would cause undue hardship for the employer. Reasonable accommodation means a modification to the work environment so a disabled person can perform his or her job. For example, provision of a sign language interpreter for someone who is deaf, an accessible bathroom for a wheelchair user, or screen reading software for someone who is blind. Our laws also prohibit employers from creating a hostile work environment for workers with disabilities and from retaliating against individuals who assert their legal rights.

执行工作场所残疾人权益保护的关键美国机构是平等就业机会委员会、司法部和劳工部。这三个机构一起执行联邦法律，将因个人残疾，或有残疾史、看似有残疾或与残疾人有联系等原因而歧视符合资格的工作申请者或员工的行为视为非法。这项法律要求雇主为残疾员工或工作申请者提供合理的方便，除非这会对雇主造成过度重负。合理的方便是指对工作环境进行改造，使得残疾人可以完成自己的工作。例如，为耳聋的员工提供手语翻译，为轮椅使用者提供无障碍卫生间，或为盲人提供荧幕阅读器。我们的法律还禁止雇主创造对残疾员工不利的工作环境，或对维护自身合法权益的个人进行报复。

In all of these areas, non-governmental disabled people’s organizations have been ever present in holding government accountable and pushing it to do better. The private business sector has also taken up the challenge of increasing employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. For example, the U.S. Business Leadership Network is a national disability organization that has over 60 affiliates across North America, representing over 5,000 employers. Such private sector initiatives help create workplaces, marketplaces, and supply chains where persons with disabilities are included and respected for their talents, abilities, and contributions.

在所有这些领域，非政府的残疾人组织一直在努力使政府对自己的行为负责，并推动他们更加努力。私营领域也接受了为残疾人增加就业机会的挑战。例如，美国企业领导网络（U.S. Business Leadership Network）是一个全国性的残疾人组织，在北美有超过60家隶属机构，代表5000多名雇主。这些私营领域的举措帮助残疾人创造能够尊重他们才能、能力和贡献的工作环境、市场及供应链。

I look forward to exploring how we can work together as APEC economies to improve development outcomes for persons with disabilities, including through enhanced legislative, enforcement, and programmatic initiatives to support equal access to education and employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. We have much to learn from each other, and everything to gain in building more inclusive societies, with workforces that benefit from the unique contributions of persons with disabilities.

我期待我们能在亚太经合组织经济体内进行合作，探寻如何为残疾人改善发展成果，包括通过加强立法、执行以及计划性的举措，来支持残疾人获得教育和就业的平等机会。在创建更加包容的社会时——这样的社会拥有受益于残疾人贡献的劳工队伍，我们有很多可以相互学习的，而且受益无穷。