CHAPTER THREE: DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL GOVERNANCE (e.g. plants as traditional medicine) are testimony to the abilities and quality of members of this population group deemed “illiterate”. 380. These persons suggest utilising this traditional ancestral knowledge to good effect by using Tuareg guides as conservation officers in the Ahaggar National Park Office. They propose revising the texts that determine the framework according to which contests, examinations and professional tests are organised to gain access to specific bodies of the Administration of Culture, in particular recruiting conservation and assessment officers for the Ahaggar National Park Office. On the one hand, these texts prevent the so-called illiterate population from accessing employment opportunities, as they do not meet the selection and recruitment conditions and criteria; on the other hand, they penalise the Park by depriving it of personnel with knowledge that is more than suited to the tasks of preserving and evaluating the cultural and natural heritage. To remedy this, the relevant parties have suggested that dispensatory measures be implemented, which take into account the specificity of this band of the population in terms of recruitment. They have also proposed delaying the retirement age for the Saharan regions of Ahaggar and Tassili. 381. Disabled persons. The CRM wishes first and foremost to salute all the efforts made (e.g. the adoption of a legal mechanism) and strategies put in place to promote and protect persons with disabilities. It has also noted the interest Algeria has shown in this category of the population by hosting the Arab Disabled Conference in Algiers during December 2006. Nevertheless, despite the enormous progress made in caring for disabled persons, and the solidarity shown towards others as a characteristic originating particularly in the customs and traditions of Algerian society, the opinion surveys and media reveal that there is still much to be done to improve the situation of these persons. The inadequacies stated relate to the following aspects in particular: Care for the mentally disabled is very poor. The CRM raised the issue that according to the media, 72 per cent of the men and women “without a permanent home”, seen wandering the streets of the capital, are mentally ill. As a result, babies and children who accompany the women live in deplorable conditions. 15 Given average living costs, the aid allocated to the disabled by the state (between DA1000 and DA3000) is insufficient. Moreover, disabled persons struggle enormously to secure employment in a country where the official unemployment rate is already quite high. The physical accessibility of public places to disabled persons has hardly been dealt with. Even worse are homes for the aged and the disabled, which are in a deplorable state. “There are also so-called homes for the aged and the disabled whose „homes‟ go no further than the names they bear because they are more like asylum housing, in dangerous promiscuity [sic], destitute aged persons, people who are mentally ill or paraplegic, 15 The daily newspaper Le jour d‟Alger, 21 October 2006. 125