In order to improve the human rights situation and implement human rights laws more effectively, the Sindh government, under the National Action Plan on Human Rights, has established Provincial Task Force on Human Rights, which met on Thursday at the Sindh Assembly.
The maiden meeting of the task force was convened under the Special Assistant to the Sindh Chief Minister for Human Rights, and the chairperson of the said task force, Ms. Rehana Laghari, to discuss mechanisms for the National Action Plan on Human Rights to improve the human rights situation in Sindh.
The meeting was attended by the other members of the Provincial Task Force which includes members of the Sindh Assembly, Ms. Seemi Farhat, Ms. Ghazala Siyal, and representatives of law, home, social welfare, minorities, information & archives, health, women development, and human rights departments.
The meeting discussed various laws, conventions, and treaties related to children, forced and bounded labour, women, the disabled, minorities, and other disadvantaged groups and decided to come to the next meeting with new ideas and suggestions to make such laws more effective.
Speaking to the members of the task force Ms. Rehana Laghari said that the National Action Plan on Human Rights consists of six thematic areas with 16 expected outcomes and 60 actions on the promotion and protection of human rights in Pakistan.
She further said that the thematic areas include: policy and legal reforms, implementing key human rights priorities, cross cutting interventions for the protection and promotion of human rights, international / UN Treaty implementation, institutional interventions and implementation, and monitoring mechanisms.
She further said that the provincial human rights policy strategies were a continuation of the national policy framework for human rights which will streamline, facilitate, and ensure the implementation of the National Action Plan.
She also said that the Provincial Task Force had been mandated to bring legislative reforms in the protection and promotion of the rights of women, minorities, children, the disabled, and civil and political rights such as the rights to life, liberty and security. Such reforms would have to be approved by legislative assembly.
She stressed the need to increase publicity campaigns of human rights laws by displaying posters, flexes, stickers, banners and other printed material at police stations, courts, hospitals, book stalls, bus stops, railway stations, and other public places in order to make every citizen aware of their rights under the law.
