The provincial assembly empowered the Sindh Child Protection Authority to take suo motu action on cases of abduction, rape, murder or any other kind of assault against children.
The house passed a law to this effect in Friday’s session in the wake of increasing crimes against children.
The Sindh Child Protection Authority Act was originally passed in 2011, but it did not cover any preventive or curative measures. As a result, amendments and drastic changes were made to make the relevant authority more effective in protecting the children of Sindh.After the latest amendments, police would have no excuse against lodging the cases of children who fall prey to different kinds of violence.
“It will be mandatory for police or any law enforcement agency to lodge [an] FIR on receipt of complaint by any person or child protection authority representative. The failure or non-registration of [an] FIR by police will result in punishment against the cops,” the law stated.
The bill for this legislation was introduced a couple of months ago and referred to the house’s standing committee on law and parliamentary affairs and human rights for deliberation. Law and child protection experts, as well as social activists, weighed in on the proposed law before finalizing a draft of the bill.
As the session kicked off with PA Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani in the chair, PPP’s PirMujeebur Rehman, who also happens to be chairman of the standing committee, stood up and presented the report in the house. He also sought further permission to move the bill.
According to the previous law, the social welfare department minister used to be chairperson of the authority.
In future, the Sindh chief minister will appoint any member of the authority to serve as its chairman. This also translates into activists, who have made social welfare and human and child rights contributions, becoming members.
