MOSCOW, April 11 (RAPSI) – A board on the rights of persons with disabilities would be established under the Office of Russian Ombudsman, Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova told RAPSI on Thursday.

The Ombudsman’s Office would go into the board’s main issues, determine composition, strength and nomination process, Moskalkova said. The board would contain representatives of social organizations of disabled persons, she added.

In 2018, the federal ombudsman received 317 complaints from physically challenged people. According to Moskalkova, the main concerns are issuance or re-issuance of a disability category (48%), infrastructure underdevelopment (18 complaints), quality of rehabilitation equipment service (25 complaints), impossibility of health resort treatment (13 applications) and untimely fully subsidized medicine assistance.

In 2012, Russia ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. According to the Federal State Statistics Service, as of January 1, 2019, 11.9 million disabled persons are registered in Russia, or 8.1% of the country’s population.