The despair, pain and hopelessness are what Ranita Zhumash with the third degree disability feels. The diagnosis of bilateral deafness made to the woman 10 years ago put an end to her normal life. When she became deaf, the ex-teacher had to work as a cleaner, plasterer, painter, vegetable picker on the field. She was paid very little and now she doesn't even have this money, she said.

The benefit in the amount of 37 thousand tenge (75.5 dollars) is used to pay the rent, but the money is not enough to buy medicines. In addition of deafness, the woman have other serious diseases. At her 47, Ranita's weight is just over 30 kilogrammes, and she cannot work because of her health condition. She lives at her relative when he undergoes treatment at the mental health unit, and at other times, she lives a vagabond life.

"The state does not help me with anything but the benefit. They provided me with a mobile phone four years ago, which broke in six months, the hearing devices, which do not fit me, and some alarm system. It knocks around somewhere as I don't use it," she said.

Ranita wrote the petition to the president of Kazakhstan asking to increase benefits for persons with disabilities, which was already signed by over 19 thousand Kazakhstanis. Another requirement was to create a separate category for hearing-impaired people eligible for social housing from the state housing fund.

Now, Kazakhstan works over the establishment of the Centre of Monitoring and Support of Audiologic Screening (evaluation of the hearing condition – editor's note) based on the newly created 'E-health' platform. Work has begun on digitising the audiologic tests carried out in maternity and primary healthcare facilities to enable the electronic transmission of the research results to the central database of the Centre of Monitoring. This is done for the timely determination of the tactic of children's treatment, including the need for hearing aids.

Parents who raise children with hearing impairments complain about the shortage of specialised kindergartens, rehabilitation centres, development rooms, and specialised doctors for children with cochlear implants.

According to her, children with cochlear implant should not study in specialised schools for the deaf, but should have experience of communication with children from regular schools and spend more time in the speaking environment.

"There is a shortage of sign language teachers who can work with children with cochlear implant, music schools so that children could learn to play piano, and other instruments, so that they could attend dance classes. The most important thing is to help employ our children. We should have more privileges – we have no travel privileges, train or bus privileges," the woman said.

The country has a shortage of ENT doctors, there are only 1,169 of them. The shortage is 76 full-time equivalents. The biggest need for them is observed in Turkestan, Akmola, Kostanai and Western Kazakhstan regions. Nearly 30 seats are allocated every year for ENT residency for the gradual reduction of the shortage. The equipment availability for the audiologic evaluation test in the republic was 37.5 per cent in average. The lowest equipment availability is seen in Aktyube, Akmola and Kostanai regions.

According to the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the People, over 266 thousand persons with disabilities have used the social services website to receive technical means of rehabilitation, over 6.4 thousand people have received the sign language services, over 43 thousand have received the individual assistant's services, nearly 61 thousand have received health resort treatment.

Speech pathologist-deaf educator-sign language interpreter Zhazira Moldasheva has worked with deaf-mute children for 18 years. The works is difficult, while the pay is low, she said. Specialised school pays nearly 160 thousand tenge (327 dollars) for the 16-hour shift, while the salary of the sign language interpreter on the local TV is much lower – 45 thousand tenge (92 dollars) per month.

"It hurts that deaf-mute children can become hairdressers and seamstresses. They are very kind, many of them draw well. Of course, they talk more to each other, but if you know the sign language, they will be glad to speak to you," Moldasheva said.

Aleksei Vostrikov became the hearing-impaired person at the age of four after he had had pneumonia. The family lived in a remote village of Akmola region, while Aleksei parents did not have financial opportunity and desire to treat the child, Aleksei said offended. Most of all, Aleksei dreams of hearing the sound of the train, which he had heard when he was a child. Now he is 32, he studied in the specialised boarding school for hearing-impaired children. He didn't want to study at the technical vocational school, and learned the important specialty of window installer – thanks to the neighbour's help.

Now over 700 thousand persons with disabilities live in Kazakhstan. 126 thousand able-bodied persons, or about 30 per cent, are employed. People with disabilities have priority in attending short-term courses that teach high-demand specialities in the labour market under the state programme 'Yenbek', fundamentals of entrepreneurship in the project 'Bastau biznes', and apply for the non-repayable grant or microloan for their businesses.

According to the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population, rehabilitation centres in 12 regions are planned to be built in the next two years, work is being carried out to ensure accessible environment. 22 thousand high-priority facilities (state institutions, policlinics, public service centres, healthcare, education, culture and sport facilities) are planned to become accessible for the disabled until 2025.

According to Aleksei Vostrikov, many hearing-impaired people hardly know their rights and available opportunities. The state needs to work more in this regard and improve access to information in a form that is most convenient to the hearing-impaired people. So far, the non-governmental sector works on it. In January 2020, two Almaty residents came together and created NGO QazYmCenter to help deaf people. They publish videos, which provide information to the hearing­-impaired people that helps them in solving their problems related to employment, payment of taxes, privileges, protection of their rights.

From September 2021, the QazYmCentre association in Ust-Kamenogorsk provides social, medical and psychological support to victims of domestic abuse with hearing impairment. Sign language specialists and psychologist provide help during both online and offline consultations.

"The most obvious thing for me was that most of female clients with hearing impairments had disrupted communication not only with the society, but even with the closest relatives. And the centre gives these people the chance to be heard. […] These people do not have enough basic tools to solve their problems. Our crisis centre gives them necessary information and counselling, we tell them that everything is fine with them, that they have a chance to fulfil themselves in any way they choose," said Anna Kalinina, counselling psychologist of the crisis centre.

In mid-January 2022, the lower chamber of parliament approved the drafts of amendments to the constitutional law "On elections in the Republic of Kazakhstan" and the law "On political parties". These draft laws are designed to ensure involvement of persons with disabilities in the representative branch of the government, as well as their engagement in the active life of the state.

The amendments contain a norm that fixes the presence of persons with disabilities along with women and young men under 29 in party lists. Overall, the number of representatives of these categories must be at least 30 per cent of the total number of persons in the party list.