Daily Times

The National Assembly on Friday unanimously passed the Zainab Alert, Recovery and Response Bill, 2019, aimed at raising alert, response and recovery of missing and abducted children.

Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari congratulated the House on passage of the bill and thanked all members of the committee including Dr Mahreen Razzaq Bhutto for their support and hard work on improving the legislative proposal.

It is worth mentioning here that bill was tabled in the previous assembly by PTI lawmaker Asad Umer but it lapsed after completion of the tenure of the House on May 31, 2018.

In the incumbent Assembly, the government moved the same bill on April 24, 2019, which was referred to Standing Committee on Human Rights. After deliberations in the House, the report of the committee on the bill was presented on January 9, 2020, which subsequently led to the passage of the bill on January 10, 2020.

According to member of the Standing Committee on Human Rights Dr Mahreen Razzaq Bhutto, the bill has been passed on the second death anniversary of nine-year old Zainab whose body was found from Kasur in 2018 after rape and murder. She dedicated the bill to children and said that this legislation will help to secure children and speedy justice to victims.

Bill requires investigation in cases involving kidnapping, rape and murder of minor children to complete within three months

Speaking in the National Assembly, Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Asad Umar said all cases involving the kidnapping, rape and murder of minor children will be required to complete investigations within three months. He hoped that Senate will also take up the bill immediately and pass it which is aimed at protecting the country’s minor children.

The bill will raise the required alerts and initiate the responses required for recovery of missing, abducted, abused or kidnapped children in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). It will help to provide speedy system for alerts, responses, recoveries, investigations, trails and rehabilitation to prevent and curb criminal activities against the children. It will also ensure harmonization and cohesion in the workings of the new agencies and institutions established for the protection of children and already exacting mechanisms within this field.

According to the bill passed by the National Assembly, the maximum sentence handed down to perpetrators of child sexual abuse will be life imprisonment with a fine of Rs 1 million while the minimum sentence will be 10 years in jail.

It also suggested that Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Agency (ZARRA) will be established headed by a director general to be appointed by prime minister in such manner and in such terms and conditions as may be prescribed in the rules. It demanded that management staff of ZARRA should be suitably equipped with skills of managing databases, conducting planning and monitoring of programmes, analyzing data, preparing reports and coordinating with all other officers. It suggested that ZARRA shall work closely with the helpline 1099 or such other helpline operating under the mandate of the division concerned. In this regard, the helpline shall forward complaints relevant to the mandate of ZARRA, which shall be acted upon in partnership between ZARAA and the National Commission on the Rights of the Child (NCRC) established under the National Commission on the Rights of Child Act, 2017. The bill also proposed taking action against police officials who cause unnecessary delay in investigating such cases, adding that those who fail to respond to the alert within two hours may also face action. Shireen Mazari informed the National Assembly that a national action plan would be formally launched in the end of the ongoing month aimed at protecting rights of children and to save them from sexual abuse. She said that awareness campaigns were launched in the federal capital to check child abuse while committees of local people including teachers have been constituted for awareness against the menace.