Legislation | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Senate panel passes bill against child abuse

Pakistan Press Foundation

ISLAMABAD: Almost seven months after the country’s largest child sex abuse case was uncovered, a Senate panel on Wednesday passed a bill which criminalises — among other offences — child pornography, mental and physical abuse while proposing severe punishments. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2015, was passed by the Senate’s Functional Committee on Human Rights […]


Journalists Protection, Welfare Bill Committee proceedings postponed

Pakistan Press Foundation

The Committee on Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage on Monday postponed the committee proceedings to consider the Bill titled “The Journalists Protection and Welfare Bill, 2011” due to absence of media house owners. The bill was introduced on October 31, 2011 by Professor Khurshid Ahmed and 21 other Senators. The bill was referred to the […]


The child vendors of Sunday Bazaars

Pakistan Press Foundation

LAHORE: “I am a grade-three student at a private academy in Green Town. On Sundays, I sell baskets and shopping bags at the weekly bazaars,” said Bilal, 10, who was selling plastic items in the Model Town Link Road Sunday Bazaar. Bilal was wearing an identification card with the name Muhammad Ashraf, trader. “My father […]


‘Karachi biggest market for endangered species’

Pakistan Press Foundation

KARACHI: Karachi is the main market where all kinds of endangered species are brought, according to top officials of the Sindh wildlife department (SWD) and Balochistan forest and wildlife department (BFWD). At the inaugural four-day ‘Consultative Workshop to Combat Illegal Wildlife Trade in Pakistan’, organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature – Pakistan (WWF-P) […]


The right to information

Pakistan Press Foundation

AFTER the new governments of KP and Punjab passed their respective, internationally acclaimed Right to Information (RTI) laws and established their independent information commissions in 2013, it was only natural to expect Sindh and Balochistan, and the federation to replace their restrictive freedom of information laws with more progressive RTI laws. Unfortunately, this has not […]


Minority rights commission to be formed in Sindh

Pakistan Press Foundation

KARACHI: Sindh Assembly’s standing committee on minority affairs decided on Wednesday to establish the ‘Sindh Minority Rights Commission’ to negate the propaganda of human rights violation of minorities in the province and take suo motu actions on their issues. The meeting was convened in the committee room of the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday to discuss […]


Freedom of information: Right to information bill to be passed soon, says minister

Pakistan Press Foundation

KARACHI: The right to information law of Sindh, with all its proposed amendments and recommendations of civil society, has been finalised and will be presented in the assembly soon. Environment minister Sikandar Mandhro shared this at the ‘Provincial Roundtable’ at Mehran hotel on Tuesday afternoon. The event organised by non-governmental organisation Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) […]


Hindu marriage law

Pakistan Press Foundation

There is good news for Pakistan’s Hindus. Seven decades after the creation of Pakistan, its parliament has worked out a mechanism to register marriages between Hindus in the country. On Monday, the Hindu Marriage Act was approved by the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice. The bill is now expected to be cleared […]


Desperate steps

Pakistan Press Foundation

ACCORDING to the visionaries at the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom (MOITT), an ideal telecom and IT policy space in Pakistan would have Section 34 from the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) in existence as law, with all other laws and policies in the IT and telecom space reflecting it. This is exactly […]


Marriage and minorities

Pakistan Press Foundation

Laws governing marriage, divorce and inheritance in the minority communities in some instances predate Partition, and have been the source of considerable inconvenience to minorities since Pakistan came into being. Attempts to redress their grievances by reforming legislation have, to say the very least, had mixed success. Some hope for the Hindu community has now […]


Implementing RTI laws

Pakistan Press Foundation

Contrary to popular perception, when it comes to protecting the rights of citizens, Pakistan has some exemplary laws. The 18th Amendment decrees that access to information held by government bodies is a right of every citizen. The provincial governments of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) have gone further by introducing their own Right to Information (RTI) […]


NA committee clears Hindu Marriage Bill

Pakistan Press Foundation

ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary panel cleared on Monday the Hindu Marriage Bill paving way for regulations on registration of marriage and divorce for the Hindu community in Pakistan. Chaired by Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker Chaudhry Mehmood Bashir Virk, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice took up the bill, for which […]


Children of the kiln — building blocks of tomorrow

Pakistan Press Foundation

Working from dawn to dusk has become routine for 11-year-old Sidra Khan. Even though she should not be working under law, Sidra has been toiling away at a brick kiln near Islamabad for several years now. Her parents and other siblings are also employed by owner of the kiln in Tarnol. “We make about 1,000 […]


Orders passed by Federal Ombudsman and FTO under FOI shall be final, rules LHC

Pakistan Press Foundation

The orders passed by Federal Ombudsman (FO) and Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) under Freedom of Information Ordinance, 2002 (FOI) shall be final and no further appeal has been provided by the legislature in the Right to Information cases under FOI, the Lahore High Court (LHC) ruled in a latest judgement. It is learnt that the […]