The National Assembly Thursday passed "The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2015" to cover number of very serious offence against the person of a child like; child pornography, exposure to seduction, sexual abuse, cruelty to a child and trafficking in human beings within Pakistan. The Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Pervaiz Rashid moved the Bill in the House for its passage. The House passed the Bill with majority.
According to objectives of the law, "Pakistan ratified the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1990, and is under obligation to implement its provisions by harmonising national policies, legislations, programmes, plans of action with it and report progress to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Geneva after every five years. To undertake this task, existing laws are required to be harmonised with the UNCRC to effectively initiate requisite actions for meeting the standards set forth under the UNCRC. The provisions provided in our criminal law statutes fail to cover a number of very serious offences against the person of a child like; child pornography, exposure to seduction, sexual abuse, cruelty to a child and trafficking in human beings within Pakistan. The amendments in the Pakistan Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure have been proposed while keeping in mind the international obligations and domestic realities. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2015 is therefore proposed to be promulgated as an effort to harmonise our laws with the provisions of the UNCRC.
The salient features of the proposed Act are: (i) The minimum age of criminal responsibility has been raised from 7 years to 10 years, and the upper age limit from 12 to 14 years. (ii)It provides for the protection of children from cruel treatment, (iii) The act of exposing children to obscene and sexually explicit material has been criminalised with punishment, (iv) It criminalises child pornography and proposes punishments, and (v) It provides for punishments for internal trafficking of human beings. The safeguards provided in this act will go a long way in protection of all children. This Act will not only comply with the constitutional provisions but will also fulfil our obligations under different international conventions in general and the UNCRC in particular.
Later, Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastgir Khan told the House that certain parts of the textile industry are doing well. However, he said the spinning sector is under challenge. While responding to a calling attention notice moved by Dr Nafisa Shah, the minister said that there is a decrease in cotton production in the country because no research has been made on cotton seeds for the last 15 to 20 years. Parliamentary Secretary for Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan told the House that there is no discriminatory treatment with the exporters of Balochistan who export goods to Afghanistan.
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