The Upper House of Parliament on Friday passed Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2015, aimed at providing protection to children from cruel treatment. The bill was moved by Zahid Hamid, minister for climate change, amends the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 and the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898. It also criminalizes for the first time sexual assault against minors, child pornography and trafficking. The amendment to the penal code, which would go into force after being ratified by the president, also raises the age of criminal responsibility from seven to 10 years of age.
Under the revised legislation, sexual assaults will now be punishable by up to seven years in prison. Previously, only rape was criminalized. Likewise, child pornography, which was previously not mentioned in the law, will be punishable by seven years in prison and a fine of Rs 0.7 million. Previously traffickers were only liable for punishment if they removed children from the country. The legislation would help protect the children against any kind of mental and physical abuse.
MISSING PERSONS The call to begin addressing the issue of missing persons in earnest echoed once again in Senate, prompting chairman Senate Raza Rabbani to declare that he will again write to the government to respond to Senate recommendation. Senator Farhatullah Babar pointed out that one month had already passed to Senate report on the subject, but the government is yet to break the ice that what it is going in accommodating the recommendations made by the House.
In December last the Senate converting itself into a committee of the whole on speedy justice had asked the government to heed the 2013 report of the human right committee of the senate that had made several suggestions including a draft legislation to bring the state security agencies under the ambit of the law and had directed the government to respond within a month.
Babar said that as a minimum the government should initiate a dialogue with the parliament so that the nation at least takes the first tentative step in the direction of addressing this grave issue of human rights violations. During the question hour the government today also assured that the matter of setting up working women hostels for the federal government employees will not be taken to the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) for views.
Minister for parliamentary affairs Sheikh Aftab gave this assurance when Senator Babar through a supplementary question asked whether the government intended to seek the advice of CCI expressing concern that recently the Council had opposed the setting up of old peoples homes in the country as against cultural norms. It also transpired that the government had not yet decided to set up the Pakistan Airways as a parallel airline independent and separate from PIA although the new company had been registered with the SECP last month. The minister in charge for aviation division also stated in written reply there is no proposal to place the matter of introducing the new airline before the CCI.
BILLS & REPORTS As many as three reports of Senate committees including Standing Committee on Law and Justice, Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs and Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat were laid in the House on Friday. Chairman Standing Committee Law and Justice Muhammad Javed Abbasi presented second interim report of the Committee on a matter referred by the House regarding "implementation of Building Code, with particular reference to provisions regarding earthquake, for suggesting penal provisions, measures and mechanism regarding violation of said Code". The National University of Science and Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was introduced in the Senate.
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