Senate passes bill designed to protect children from cruel treatment

The Senate on Friday passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2015 aimed at providing protection to the children from cruel treatment.

Another bill seeking further amendment in the National University of Sciences and Technology Act, 1997 was referred to the standing committee concerned for deliberation.

Both the bills were moved by Minister for Human Rights Zahid Hamid in the House.

The statement and objects of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2015 say that Pakistan ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1990, and is under obligation to implement its provision 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 year.

“The provisions provided in our criminal law statutes fail to cover a number of very serious offences such as child pornography, exposure to seduction, sexual abuse, cruelty to a child and human trafficking,” the statement says while adding, “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 salient features of the Act included increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 7 to 10 years and the upper age limit from 12-14 years, criminalising act of exposing children to obscene and sexually explicit material with punishment, criminalising child pornography and proposing punishment for internal trafficking of human beings.

Meanwhile, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani referred the bill, National University of Sciences and Technology Act, 1997 [The National University of Science and Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2016, further to amendment to the standing committee after it was moved by Zahid Hamid on behalf of Minister for Science and Technology Rana Tanveer Hussain.