Opinions on the first National Report of
Korea on the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities
services needed, the enforcement decree of the Act on Activity Assistant
Services for Persons with Disabilities limits the eligibility of applicants to only
persons with disability grades 1 and 2, and the fact that they cannot select,
employ or manage their activity assistants and the services provided are
excessively limited have also been highlighted as problems.
③ According to the results of the 2011 Survey on the Status of Persons with
Disabilities by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, 198,000 persons with
disabilities responded they need someone else’s support for doing most
activities in daily life but only 29% of persons with disabilities who need activity
assistants received such services. In addition, 27.8% of persons with
disabilities responded ‘I have difficulty in going outside (the house) because
there is no one to accompany me.’ This shows that the lack of activity
assistants may result in the contraction of social activities of persons with
disabilities.
④ In 2014, the activity assistance allowance was increased to an amount
equivalent to 392 hours a month, or roughly 13 hours a day, including both
basic allowance and additional allowance. However, the allowance amount
was not set on the basis of needs of individual persons with disabilities. Rather,
the amount was unilaterally set conditional to recognition scores, thus failing to
accurately reflect the needs of individual persons with disabilities. It also raised
the problem that some people get less allowance than they actually need or
others get more than they need.
2) Recommendation
① Since persons with disability grade 3 or below are not eligible for activity
assistance under the current system, it is necessary to ease the qualification of
persons allowed to apply for the assistance, by excluding the grades of
disabilities from the qualifications of persons eligible for activity assistance, and
instead qualifying persons with disabilities for the allowance based on the
NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF KOREA
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