The South African Human Rights Commission and the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons in the Presidency will launch a report on the accessibility of built environments on the 30th October 2002.

At this launch Neville Cohen, a wheelchair user for the past 50 years, is to be acknowledged for his half century of advancing the rights of people with disabilities in South Africa. Ms Henrietta Bogopane, a Member of National Parliament and Chairperson of the Joint Monitoring Committee in Parliament on Children, Disability, and Youth, will be a Guest Speaker at the event.

The report is the result of a project to investigate the adequacy of laws governing accessibility and built environments, initiated by the Commission and the South African Federal Council on Disability. It was prompted by the many physical barriers, which prevent people with disabilities from using built environments in our society as freely and safely as other citizens do.

The legislative framework governing the built environment in South Africa has three independent mechanisms, that is, the Building Standards Act (Act 103 of 1977), last amended in 1989; The National Building Regulations, made by the Minister of public Works in terms of Section 17(1) of the Building Standards Act; and the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) 0400 Code of Practice.

The report acknowledges there are also many other barriers that prevent people with disabilities in South Africa from enjoying their Constitutional and basic human rights. This is largely due to widespread ignorance and prejudice in our society, but also because some legislation fails to protect the rights of people with disabilities.

The Report has identified deficiencies in the current regulatory framework for accessibility and the built environment. These include:

• Insufficient definition of disability to meet the specific requirements of various disabled user groups.
• A loophole for property developers and building professionals to evade or ignore accessibility requirements because the non-statutory guidelines of the SABS Code of Practice are not legally enforceable.
• Lack of enforcement of Part S of the National Building regulations (Which provides for disabled users in wheelchairs) by building control officers throughout the country, with the result that the majority of public buildings in South Africa are inaccessible.
• Failure to cross-reference Part S with other sections of the National Building Regulations, resulting in further loopholes, anomalies and misconceptions in the application of regulations.

Details of the launch:
Date: 30th October 2002
Venue: Hyatt Hotel in Rosebank
Time: 16H00
For more information please contact:
Phumla Mthala at 083 265 3612

Top of Page