women with disabilities, with high priority being given in future to the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights-related programmes. B. Articles 6-8: Rights relating to work 20. The field of employment is one in which disability-based discrimination has been prominent and persistent. In most countries the unemployment rate among persons with disabilities is two to three times higher than the unemployment rate for persons without disabilities. Where persons with disabilities are employed, they are mostly engaged in low-paid jobs with little social and legal security and are often segregated from the mainstream of the labour market. The integration of persons with disabilities into the regular labour market should be actively supported by States. 21. The “right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts” (art. 6 (1)) is not realized where the only real opportunity open to disabled workers is to work in so-called “sheltered” facilities under substandard conditions. Arrangements whereby persons with a certain category of disability are effectively confined to certain occupations or to the production of certain goods may violate this right. Similarly, in the light of principle 13 (3) of the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care, 20 “therapeutical treatment” in institutions which amounts to forced labour is also incompatible with the Covenant. In this regard, the prohibition on forced labour contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is also of potential relevance. 22. According to the Standard Rules, persons with disabilities, whether in rural or urban areas, must have equal opportunities for productive and gainful employment in the labour market. 21 For this to happen it is particularly important that artificial barriers to integration in general, and to employment in particular, be removed. As the International Labour Organization has noted, it is very often the physical barriers that society has erected in areas such as transport, housing and the workplace which are then cited as the reason why persons with disabilities cannot be employed. 22 For example, as long as workplaces are designed and built in ways that make them inaccessible to wheelchairs, employers will be able to “justify” their failure to employ wheelchair users. Governments should also develop policies which promote and regulate flexible and alternative work arrangements that reasonably accommodate the needs of disabled workers. 23. Similarly, the failure of Governments to ensure that modes of transportation are accessible to persons with disabilities greatly reduces the chances of such persons finding suitable, integrated jobs, taking advantage of educational and vocational 20 See note 9 above. 21 Standard Rules (see note 6 above), Rule 7. 22 See A/CONF.157/PC/61/Add.10, p. 12.