CAIRO - Hundreds of disabled people protested in downtown Cairo Thursday demanding that the Government should preserve and protect their rights and help them get jobs in the ministries and private sector. They wanted Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to enforce a 2010 law the compels the public and private sector to allocate five per cent of their labour force to the disabled people, whose number exceeds 10 million in Egypt. The protesters called on Sharaf to protect the rights of the disabled and integrate them into the nation's labour force through offering them training and rehabilitation programmes. The Government must prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities in all areas of life, including employment, access to justice and the rights to education and health services and access to transportation specially after the January 25 revolution, the protesters demanded. "We are denied our right to get a job despite the fact that we can be integrated into the nation's labour force through attending training and rehabilitation programmes," Mohamed el-Saeed, a crippled man, said. "There is an urgent need for setting up a comprehensive programme to reintegrate disabled people into society through training courses, raising awareness and encouraging solidarity among disabled people," he said. He called for enforcing the law, which has been passed to improve the status of handicapped people, notably in the world of work, and taking legal action against those, who refuse to abide by it. Law No 137/1981 mandates jail sentences of up to one month and fines as punishment for any employer found guilty of refusing to appoint a handicapped person, el-Saeed said. Disabled people are seldom taken care of by institutions here; mostly they are either left to their own devices on the street or kept behind closed doors because their families are ashamed of them.