National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) Chairperson Khawar Mumtaz on Tuesday said more amendments have been forwarded to be incorporated in the recently passed NCSW Amendment Bill 2016.
“Under the amended bill, after completing the tenure as head of the commission, the new chairperson would be appointed at the earliest or the acting chair would be allowed to work till the appointment of a new chairperson for continuity of projects,” she said.
“We have suggested that tenure of commission members would also be extended till the appointment of new members to avoid any hindrance in the commission’s work,” Mumtaz said. Suggestions have been sent to the mover of the bill, Dr Nikhat Shakeel Khan, to be included when the bill is next tabled in the upper house of the parliament, Khawar Mumtaz told APP.
“Shortcomings are always pointed out after practical implementation and covered whenever new legislation is being drafted. It has been observed that the commission remains dysfunctional because of the lack of appointments within the stipulated time period of one month. Therefore, it is a beneficial move to extend the time period of the acting chairperson, but law making is not the job of any single person and the head cannot work alone on any project with commission members. The NCSW wants that a concrete amendment should be finalised which strengthens the capacities of the commission,” she explained.
The National Commission on the Status of Women was established through a Presidential Ordinance in 2000. From 2000-2015, five commissions completed their terms. The first four chairpersons of the commissions were Dr Shaheen Sardar Ali, Majida Rizvi, Arifa Syeda, Anis Haroon and Khawar Mumtaz, respectively. Mumtaz was then reappointed as the head of the sixth commission.
Khawar Mumtaz took charge of the fifth commission on January 1, 2013, after a gap of nine months between her and the previous chairperson Anis Haroon who completed her tenure on March 26, 2012.
Her tenure as the fifth commission head expired on December 31, 2015, but she was reappointed in June last year. The lack of a commission head meant that its activities and ongoing projects were at a standstill, affecting the welfare of women at the grass root level, which was after all, the prime mandate of the commission.
