ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Senate on Wednesday passed the Zainab Alert, Recovery and Response Bill, 2020, to react to the abduction of children more quickly and bring them back to safety as soon as possible.
The country’s minister for parliamentary affairs, Azam Khan Swati, moved a motion under Rule 263 for the immediate consideration of the bill by dispensing the rules.
The bill is named after Zainab Ansari, a six-year-old girl, who was abducted in Kasur in January 2018 and brutally raped and killed by a man in her town.
The House passed the bill after a brief discussion to ensure that all cases involving the kidnapping, rape and murder of minor children would be investigated in three months.
The bill also seeks to raise the required alerts and initiate the responses required for the recovery of missing, abducted, abused or kidnapped children in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
It will ensure the harmonization and cohesion in the workings of the new agencies and institutions established for the protection of children.
According to the bill, the maximum sentence handed down to perpetrators of child sexual abuse will be life imprisonment with a fine of Rs1 million while the minimum sentence will be 10 years.
It also seeks to establish Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Agency (ZARRA) that is headed by a director general who is appointed by the prime minister in keeping with the prescribed rules.
The bill requires that the management of ZARRA be suitably equipped with skills of managing databases, conducting planning and monitoring of programs, analyzing data, preparing reports and coordinating with all other officers.
ZARRA will also work closely with the 1099 helpline or such other helplines operating under the mandate of the division concerned.
The local police and concerned law enforcement agencies will take immediate action and launch investigation, search, rescue and recovery operations after receiving information about a relevant case.
If required, ZARRA will also coordinate the efforts of the concerned police stations and other federal and provincial agencies, authorities or departments.
