Myanmar’s premier national-level body for disabled rights, a 21-member Myanmar Council of People with Disabilities, is soon to be formed and will work towards implementing nationwide policies to protect the disabled.

Recently, a national conference on disability was held in Yangon, where the council was conceived and board members voted in. Hearing-impaired Yadanar Aung, deputy-principal of the Mandalay School for the Deaf, was appointed as the council’s chairman.

“We will work to adopt a law to protect disabled people and to implement the UNCRPD [UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities],” Min Soe, one of the appointed council members, told attendees of the conference.

Myanmar’s Department of Social Welfare estimated that approximately 2.3 percent of the country’s population, amounting to about 1.3 million people, are living with disabilities.