The legally mandated employment quota for people with disabilities in Iraq is not being implemented, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report on Tuesday.

HRW said that the Iraqi government’s failure to implement its five percent employment quota for people with disabilities has led to thousands across the country being left without any chance of employment.

“Legal promises to employ people with disabilities in Iraq are not translating into real job opportunities,” HRW Iraq researcher Sarah Sanbar said in the report, adding that “the gap between law and practice leaves hundreds of thousands of Iraqis with disabilities struggling to earn a living.”

The report was based on interviews conducted with “three disability rights activists, six Iraqis with disabilities, one sign language interpreter, one business owner who employs people with disabilities, and three government employees about the right to employment for Iraqis with disabilities.”

According to HRW, in 2019, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had said that there are around three million people in Iraq with disabilities as a result of decades of armed conflict, making it one of the largest populations of people with disabilities around the world.

Speaking to HRW, the director of the Commission on the Care of People with Disabilities and Special Needs said that the Commission and the Federal Public Service Council lack enforcement authority and have to depend on government ministries to allocate and fill the required number of jobs for Iraqis with disabilities.

The HRW report came with a series of recommendations to Iraqi authorities, including establishing a monitoring and reporting mechanism for government ministries to periodically report on their performance in meeting the employment quota, as well as enforcing fines against private companies failing to meet the 3 percent employment quota.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), around four million people lived with disabilities in Iraq in 2011, a number that has increased since the ISIS war.

According to a report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), most Iraqi people with disabilities have little to no income.