NA body proposes watchdog for hostels

Islamabad :The National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice on Thursday recommended the establishment of the Hostel Regulatory Authority for making rules, ensuring the protection of women inmates and checking the mushroom growth of privately-owned women's hostels.

Committee chairman Riaz Fityana, who chaired the meeting, said the private hostels for women lacked security, while there were also reports of harassment of those women.

He directed the commerce secretary to write a letter to provincial governments and federal ministry of human rights to ensure the protection of women residing in the hostels.

The meeting unanimously adopted a resolution strongly condemning the alleged fixation of surveillance cameras in the washrooms of a university in Balochistan.

The committee directed the chief minister of Balochistan to investigate the issue and produce a detailed report.

It called for the protection of working women, especially those living in women's hostels.

The committee unanimously decided to pend the passage of private bills of Chairman of Parliament's Kashmir Committee Syed Fakhar Imam titled The Federal Ombudsman Institutional Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 2019, (Article 22); The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (Article (9) till next meeting.

Likewise, the committee decided to delay the passage of the Dr Nafisa Shah's Bill titled 'Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (Article 25)' till next meeting for further fine-tuning and improvements.

The meeting was attended by Attaullah, Lal Chand, Muhammad Farooq Azam Malik, Kishwer Zehra, Malik Muhammad Ehsanullah Tiwana, Agha Hassan Baloch, Syed Hussain Tariq, Nafisa Shah, Syed Naveed Qamar and Aliya Kamran.