ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights will take up on Monday three long pending pro-women bills, besides receiving a briefing from Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz on the situation in India-held Kashmir.

The committee, headed by Babar Nawaz Khan of the PML-N, is scheduled to take up two bills seeking amendments to the Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2010 and one seeking changes to the National Commission on the Status of Women Act 2012, according to the agenda issued for the meeting by the National Assembly Secretariat.

One of the bills seeking amendment to the protection against harassment law was moved by Aasiya Nasir of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) in May 2014 and the other by Dr Fouzia Hameed of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in August last year.

There are 15 woman MNAs among the 21 members of the human rights committee.

The JUI-F member has sought to broaden the definition of “harassment” and enhance the scope of the act to provide protection to a wide array of workers in both the formal and informal sectors, as well as to the students and trainees during vocational training.

The MNA has particularly sought to bring domestic servants under the scope of the law by suggesting an amendment to Section 2 of the act, stating: “Employee means a person employed for any work including home-based worker of any age, on regular, temporary or ad-hoc or daily wages, either directly or through an agent, including a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the principal employer, whether for remuneration or not or working on a voluntary basis or otherwise, whether the terms of employment are expressed or implied and includes a co-worker, probationer, trainee, apprentice or called by any other such name and domestic workers of any age employed to do the household work for remuneration whether in cash or kind, either directly or through any agency on a temporary, permanent, part time or fulltime basis.”

She has suggested the addition after the word “office” of “or an institute, or a dwelling place or a house where the domestic servant works or home-based worker carries out the work of an enterprise owned by individual or self-employed worker engaged in the production or sale of goods or providing service of any kind whatsoever”.

The bill moved by Dr Hameed seeks to bring the educational institutions in the ambit of law.

Its statement of objects and reasons states: “The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010 was enforced in the country for protection of working female employees, but a number of harassment incidents have taken place in the educational institutions of the country. These incidents have been reported in the press and electronic media but no proper remedy is available for redressal in this regard. Through the amendment, it has been proposed to expand definitions and make the punishments severe.”

An amendment to Section 4 suggests: “In case a student of an institution is proved to be guilty of an offence under this Act, cancellation of admission, cease to be a student in current degree programme and ban on admission in all future programmes.”

Similarly, “in case of an employee, including teachers or all other staff members proved to be guilty of any offence under the act, cancellation of contract along with penalty which may extend up to one million rupees for payment to the victim of harassment”.

The bill also suggests that “each and every public or private organisation in the country where even a single female employee is working shall submit quarterly report to the federal ombudsman against harassment of women” containing details of cases, if any, along with action taken against the accused persons.

The mover has suggested imposition of a fine of Rs50,000 on the responsible person or employer in case of failure to submit a quarterly report.

A similar bill had been moved by Farhatullah Babar of the PPP in the Senate when a case of harassment of a student was reported at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

The mover, however, had to withdraw his bill in the committee when all the stakeholders, including the NCSW, Higher Education Commission and universities, opposed it, saying that the educational institutions had already implemented a strict code in this regard.

Meanwhile, through her one-page bill, MQM’s Saman Sultana Jafri has sought to make it binding upon the federal government to “lay biannual report of the NCSW, together with explanatory memorandum as to the action taken thereon before both Houses” (National Assembly and Senate) and that “the report shall stand referred to the standing committees on human rights of both the houses”.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2017