Islamabad, the 26th December, 2017.  34th meeting of the Standing Committee on M/o Human Rights met today at 10:00 am in the Committee Room No. 07, Parliament House, Islamabad, under the Chairmanship of Mr. Babar Nawaz Khan, MNA.

    The meeting commenced with the recitation from the Holy Qura’n. The Committee confirmed the minutes of the previous meeting. The Committee could not satisfy on the comprehensive report/implementation status of the recommendations of the previous meeting and recommended that comprehensive report on the previous recommendations of all the previous meetings should be provided by the M/o Human Rights to the Committee in its next meeting positively. The Committee decided to defer “The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Amendment Bill, 2017” on the request of the mover of the Bill, Dr. Fouzia Hameed, MNA and the Chairperson, National Commission for the Status of Women for its next meeting after proper discussion and opinion of the Commission.  

    Agenda Item No. V was also deferred by the Committee due to absence of Labour Secretaries of the Provinces and The Committee recommended that Minister of State for Human Rights should issue letters to all the Chief Secretaries of the Provinces that all the Labour Secretaries of all the Provinces have not attended the meeting of the Human Rights dated the 26th December, 2017 to respond on the agenda and that they should attend the next meeting of the Committee as and when its notice is issue summons to all the Labour Secretaries of the Provinces to attend the next meeting by force and ensure that they will have to pay the expenses being borne by the Government on its next meeting, if they do not attend the meeting.

    The Committee was then given briefing on the agenda item No.VI on the issue of Human Rights violation in occupied Kashmir by the Indian Forces. The Committee could not satisfy on his briefing and recommended that briefing on the issue should be given by the representative of the M/o Foreign Affairs in Urdu. The Committee also recommended that all the relevant maps of Pakistan should be brought back from United Nations and be shown the areas of occupied Kashmir in the map of Pakistan.

    The Committee also deferred the agenda Item No. VII on the briefing of G.S.P Plus Status  for its next meeting.

    The meeting was attended by Begum Tahira Bukhari, Ms. Surriya Asghar, Dr. Shazia Sobia, Ms. Kiran Haider, Ms. Amra Khan, Ms. Musarat Rafique Mahesar, Ms. Munaza Hassan, Ms. Kishwer Zehra, Ms. Aliya Kamran Murtaza, Mr. Sajid Nawaz, MNAs, mover of the Bill, Dr. Fouzia Hamee, MNA, Minister of State for Human Rights and senior officers from the Ministry of Human Rights, Industries and Commerce.