By Asim Hussain
ISLAMABAD: Senator Faisal Javed Tuesday said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government realized the fact that child abuse cases were not reported and addressed the issue after coming into power.
He on behalf of the government requested the upper house to pass the “Zainab Alert Bill,” pending before the senate standing committee on human rights for the last couple of months. He was addressing to media persons at the parliament.
Keeping in mind the severity of the issue, ministries of Human Rights and Law and Justice on the direction of the government prepared ‘Zainab Alert Bill” on war footings and presented it in the Parliament but unfortunately that bill was still lingering in the committees, he added.
He said the same bill after being discussed for eight months in the standing committee of Human Rights of the National Assembly (NA) was passed and referred to the upper house where it was stuck.
The senator said the upper house could amend the bill latter but it should be passed from the Senate committee on Human Rights as soon as possible.
Zainab Alert Response and Recovery Act (ZARRA) would be constituted after the passage of the bill from the parliament, Faisal Javed added.
He said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had prepared special message in that regard whereas Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) had also prepared to issue alert on national media and Social Media teams were also waiting for green signal from the government to vigorously spread the message.
“The bill is regarding punishment for those sick minded culprits commit this crime of child abuse,” said Faisal Javed adding the bill would also be got passed from other provincial assemblies to increase the scope and effect of the law to the whole country.
He while requesting Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to amend the bill at latter stage but pass it immediately without any further delay as the bill was very important. He also requested the chief ministers of all provinces to take necessary action for implementation of the bill in the respective provinces.
