ISLAMABAD, Sep 13 (APP):Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights Monday considered the “Islamabad Capital Territory Domestic Workers Bill, 2021” in detail introduced by Senator Sherry Rehman.
The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Walid Iqbal, here at the Parliament House.
Sherry emphasized that a regulatory framework for domestic workers must be formulated to prevent abuse and maltreatment of the same.
She said there should be laws for the unprivileged class of the country, which they should be aware of. However there were people who treated the domestic workers with integrity but not as a matter of their right, she added.
Sherry said there must be a regulatory framework for the employers on which the entire families of the workers were relied upon, which had also remained a practice in the developed countries.
The officials of the Ministry of Human Rights while reviewing the bill prescribed that globally the rights of the domestic workers were protected and discussed under the ILO convention No 189 and Recommendation 201.
The ministry official said even though Pakistan had not ratified this convention, the subject Bill catered top most of the rights enshrined in the convention.
Detailed discussion entailed on the prohibition on employment under the age of sixteen years.
The ministry officials said the minimum age set out in the Bill must be consistent with all the other existing laws.
They asserted that after inclusion of child domestic labour in list of prohibited occupation in the Employment of Children Act, 1991, the age of children prohibited to work as domestic workers was fourteen, however, it may also be noted that the ILO convention on minimum age declared the minimum age for a child to work to be 15 and the same was reflected in the Punjab Domestic Workers Act, 2019 as well.
The Ministry of Human Rights also recommended the 15 years age as minimum age for the purposes of the Bill.
Senator Taj Roghani disagreed with the ministry officials on fifteen as the minimum age for child to be able to work under the ILO convention. It was noted that ILO convention was a UN body and eighteen years was the standard age as per the United Nations on all such matters.
The committee chairman highlighted that even as a “child soldier” the combat age was sixteen years, however, the committee by majority vote decided that in order to ascertain uniformity with laws such as contract and others amendment in the bill in terms of age should be amended from sixteen to eighteen years as the minimum age to work under the Islamabad Capital Territory Domestic workers Bill 2021.
The ministry also proposed amendment in Section 2 (j) which referred to the companies or agencies engaged in the business of procuring domestic workers and providing relief against any possible violation of labour rights by these agencies.
Commenting on this Sherry said it was a vast domain and a separate bill on “employing agencies”, “workers” and “contact” should be formulated.
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