The National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights on Tuesday expressed serious anger over the absence of provincial labour secretaries and directed federal secretary Ministry of Human Rights to issue letters to the provincial chief secretaries to ensure presence of the labour secretaries in the next meeting of the panel.
The meeting held here under the chairmanship of MNA Babar Nawaz Khan to discuss the issues of protection against harassment of women at the workplace (Amendment Bill 2017), steps taken by the government on controlling pollution being created by industries in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, briefing about the labour policy of the government and other issues.
The committee confirmed the minutes of the previous meeting. However, the participants of the committee were not satisfied with the comprehensive report/implementation status of the recommendations of the previous meeting. The panel recommended that comprehensive report on the previous recommendations of all the previous meetings should be provided by the Ministry of Human Rights to the committee in its next meeting positively.
The committee decided to defer 'The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Amendment Bill, 2017' on the request of the mover of the Bill, MNA Dr Fouzia Hameed and the chairperson National Commission for the Status of Women for its next meeting after proper discussion and opinion of the Commission.
The panel also deferred the agenda item regarding the government's steps to check the spreading of pollution by industries in provinces due to absence of provincial labor secretaries. The committee asked the minister of state for human rights to issue letters to all the chief secretaries of the provinces that all the labor secretaries of all the provinces have not attended the meeting to respond on the agenda and that they should attend the next meeting.
The committee directed the concerned quarters when the panel has issued the notices to the provincial labour secretaries to attend the next meeting as why they didn't come. The panel further said if the officials summoned for the briefing is failing to attend the meeting, his/her presence must be ensured by force.
The participants further said that it should be ensured if any official does not attend the meeting, he/she must have to pay the expenses being borne by the government on its next meeting. The committee members also expressed dissatisfaction over the briefing about the human rights violation in Occupied Kashmir by the Indian forces and asked the officials to summon the senior officials of Ministry of Foreign Affairs to brief the panel about the subject in Urdu.
The committee also recommended that all the relevant maps of Pakistan should be brought back from the United Nations and the areas of Occupied Kashmir be shown in the map of Pakistan. The committee also deferred the agenda item on the briefing of GSP Plus status for its next meeting.
The meeting was attended by Begum Tahira Bukhari, Surriya Asghar, Dr Shazia Sobia, Kiran Haider, Amra Khan, Musarat Rafique Mahesar, Munaza Hassan, Kishwer Zehra, Aliya Kamran Murtaza, Sajid Nawaz, Dr Fouzia Hameed, minister of state for human rights and senior officers from the Ministry of Human Rights, Industries and Commerce.