December 3 is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, China's affairs of persons with disabilities have achieved important progress, according to the 2021 Statistical Communique on the Development of the Work on Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) by China Disabled Persons' Federation.

Rehabilitation 

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China aims to strengthen the construction of rehabilitation institutions and talent teams for PWDs. By the end of 2021, there were 11,260 rehabilitation institutions in China and the number of employees working in those rehabilitation institutions reached 318,000. 

Education 

Nationwide, there were 117 special education classes at senior high schools in 2021, with 11,847 students. A total of 14,559 students with disabilities were accepted in mainstream higher education institutions in 2021, and 2,302 disabled students entered special higher education institutions. 

Employment 

In 2021, 408,000 PWDs were newly employed, including 132,000 in urban areas and 276,000 in rural areas. As of 2021, there were a total of 8.81 million certified PWDs in urban and rural areas, and almost 50 percent of them were working in the field of agricultural planting and rearing. 

Social security 

In 2021, 27.33 million PWDs in rural and urban areas participated in the endowment insurance and 11,278 nursing service institutions ensured nursing services for the PWDs.

"In order to help disabled people enjoy a better life, it's necessary to encourage companies to shoulder their social responsibilities and give them job opportunities," Zhou Lulu, head of the Guangzhou University Institute for Human Rights, said at the side event to the ongoing 51st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Data editor: Sun Yiwen; Graphics designer: Li Jingjie