Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights unanimously passed "The Criminal Law (amendment) Bill, 2015" on Wednesday, toughening punishments against child abusers and criminalizing child pornography.
Meeting of the committee was held in the Parliament House under the chair of Senator Nasreen Jalil.
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 in the amended bill.
The bill also provides for the protection of children from cruel treatment and the act of exposing children to obscene and sexually explicit material has been criminalised with punishment.
The bill also criminalises child pornography and proposes punishment, besides suggesting stringent punishments for internal trafficking of human beings.
Sharafat A Chaudhry, legal consultant for human rights, informed the Senate committee members that provisions provided in the criminal law statutes fail 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 amendments in the Pakistan Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure have been proposed while keeping in mind the international obligations and domestic realities, he said.
Chaudhry said the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2015 is therefore proposed to be promulgated as an effort to harmonise our laws with the provisions of the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child.
He also said that the bill proposed by the Ministry of Human Rights was under review of the Law Reform Committee constituted by the Prime Minister.
Briefing committee members about the Kasur child sexual abuse, a representative of National Human Rights Commission said the Commission has recommended to Inspector General of Police Punjab and Chief Minister Punjab for action against district administration and police for their negligence.
The committee also took up for consideration the Actions in Aid of Civil Power Regulation 2011 to oversee the implications of its implementation. A representative of SAFRON said that his ministry was concerned only with the legislation and its implementation was the responsibility of law enforcing agencies.
However, the committee decided that SAFRON as the lead ministry should seek the views of the concerned ministries on the implementation of the Regulation and inform the Committee at its next meeting directing also that the Minister SAFRON should also be present in the next meeting.
Senator Farhatullah Babar then asked that the ministry should come prepared at the next meeting with answers to some specific questions. The specific questions he asked pertained to the number of those detained with effect from Feb1, 2008 the date from which the 2011 regulation was given retroactive effect and the status of the cases against them whether convicted, acquitted or in appeals and whether their cases were dealt with in military courts or in terrorism or ordinary courts.
He asked whether the governor KPK had conferred any additional powers upon the armed forces or amended the schedule to the regulation, or delegated his powers to any officer and what powers delegated and to whom, as provided for in the Regulation itself.
The regulation binds the government to set up oversight boards, he said and asked, whether such oversight boards had been set up to periodically review the conditions of internment centers and take notice of complaints of degrading treatment and torture of the detainees.
Babar also took up the issue of disappearance of human rights activist Rizwan Niazi from Faisalabad in November 2015 allegedly by 20-30 people wearing the elite force uniforms and the complaint of a woman from Balochistan accusing a law enforcing agency of keeping her two sons in its custody since February 2014 without any legal proceedings against them allegedly at the behest of a powerful politician.
After some discussion the committee decided to refer both the cases to the National commission on Human Rights for investigation and redressal of grievances of petitioners.