Exploring Panama's Legal Framework On Employment For People With Disabilities

When we speak of disability in the Republic of Panama, we refer to the situation in which a person suffers from a physical, motor, mental, intellectual and/or sensory impairment or disability, whether permanent or temporary in nature, which limits his or her ability to perform one or more essential activities of daily living, that is, in the manner or within the range considered standard for a human being.

Unfortunately, disability is also associated with the concept of discrimination, since persons with disabilities are often excluded or restricted from enjoying or exercising, under equal conditions, their most basic rights as persons, including the right to work.

Within this context, the Panamanian State has enacted (since the early nineties) a series of legal provisions, many of them scarcely publicized, which establish employer obligations, labor rights, tax incentives for both employers and employees and even labor privileges, all with the intention of