Salam Launches National Strategy for Disability Inclusion in Lebanon

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam affirmed during the launch of the "National Strategy for the Rights and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities" that "this strategy is not the strategy of a single ministry nor a sectoral document added to state documents, but rather a commitment from the Lebanese state towards its citizens."

He viewed that "the rights of persons with disabilities are not a separate social file but a test of the state's ability to be a state for all its citizens and to guarantee them equality in rights and opportunities."

He said: "Our country is emerging from long years of economic, institutional, and security crises. These crises have shown that persons with disabilities are among the first to pay the price of weak institutions, such as when access to hospitals becomes difficult, schools close, transport means stop working, or evacuation plans and shelters are not equipped."

He added: "We cannot say that the integration of persons with disabilities is something we postpone until after recovery. Integration is part of recovery itself, and we cannot build a new state with the same institutions and the same methods that previously excluded a part of the Lebanese people."