'The Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, 2020' reviewed

The Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights on Monday recommended that "The Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, 2020" should be extended to the entire country with incorporation of a clause for sending such cases to anti-terrorism courts.

The meeting of Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights was held here on Monday in the chair of Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar.

The committee reviewed "The Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, 2020" and also considered the report on the bill titled "The ICT Rights of Persons with Disability Bill, 2020."

The committee chairman said that the government and the Ministry of Law agreed to the points raised in the previous meeting to make the bill more effective in ending the growing number of child abuses and abductions. The bill will be made effective by removing the defects in the bill, he added.

He said the members committee should recommend whether the bill should be applied only in Islamabad or the whole country to control the increasing number of child abuse cases.

According to the opinion of majority of the members, it was decided that legislation should be recommended to be applied to the whole country.

The chairman committee said that the purpose of clause 182 included to section 8 of the Bill has other objectives and there are other flaws as well.

He said that the bill has some lapses and instead of affecting the accused, it may be beneficial for the accused.

He directed for bringing improvement in it and report back to the committee.

Senator Mohammed Ali Saif said that Brazil has prepared the best law regarding child abduction and other crimes that it should also be reviewed and included.

Senator Faisal Javed said the National Assembly has passed the bill and if it had so many shortcomings, the Ministry of Law should have reviewed it.

What the Ministry of Law has been doing for two years is surprising. How such important points can be ignored, the chairman committee said, adding clause for the cases to be tried in anti-terrorism court will be incorporated to frighten the people against this crime.

Regarding the Islamabad's Disability Bill 2020, Information Commissioner Zahid Abdullah told the committee that four points should be included in the bill.

He said that banks do not allow blind to open the account. Blind people are working in important positions and banks should provide them equal facilities of a common citizen. All four conditions of disability should be included in the law. There should be equal representation of men and women in the council as blind women have their own problems.

Salman, a blind employee of the National Assembly, told the committee that instead of medical officer, the council should decide who is disabled and a proportion of the disabled quota should be fixed for the blind, on which Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar said another committee has also made some suggestions regarding this bill. All of them will be reviewed in the next meeting and the bill will be made more effective, he said.

Senators Prof Dr Mahar Taj Roghani, Muhammad Ali Khan Saif, Dr Jehanzeb Jamaludini, Mohammad Usman Khan Kakar, Kasubai, Kamran Michael, Quart-ul-Ain Murree and Faisal Javed, besides Secretary Ministry of Human Rights Rabia Jari Agha were present at the meeting of the functional committee.