Officials from the ministries of social affairs and urban planning met with the Disability Action Council (DAC) on Monday to discuss issuing a prakas to standardise long-promised handicap accessibility in public buildings, according to a Facebook post by DAC.

The meeting comes seven years after the Law on Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was passed in 2009. The law requires that new public buildings be built with handicap accessibility, and gave current public buildings five years to become accessible. But no authority mechanism was put in place for standardising accessibility or punishing those who fail to abide.

As a result, many buildings have neglected to honour this law, according to Cambodian Disabled People’s Organization executive director Ngin Saoroth, who said the establishment of a standard and an authority mechanism is important, but not enough.

“We must also demand more commitment and a bigger budget,” he said in an interview yesterday.