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The ground work for two legislative pieces to address sexual
harassment in Pakistan
i) Protection Against
Harassment at Workplace Bill 2009
and
ii) Code of Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill 2009
AASHA (An Alliance Against
Sexual Harassment At the workplace) started working on the
issue of sexual harassment in conjunction with the
Government and other stakeholders in 2001, when this issue
was still a sensitive topic. In December 2001, the
Government agreed that AASHA should start to work on a
policy framework which could become an anti-sexual
harassment policy for the country and to conduct an analysis
of the situation so that the policy to address sexual
harassment would be based on real information from the
ground.
At the time, Dr. Fouzia Saeed was the Country Director of
the international development group, Action Aid. She ensured
that Action Aid provided support to the creation of AASHA
and funded its secretariat under her supervision. (Later
when she left Action Aid in 2005 and joined Mehergarh, the
secretariat was moved to Mehergarh with the agreement of the
members). AASHA completed the situation analysis in April,
2002 (published the following July) and, in May, prepared a
draft of the anti-sexual harassment policy in close
collaboration with senior officials of the Government.
The draft
policy was discussed in a series of provincial consultations
to ensure that employees, employers, academicians, civil
society people, government officials and any other relevant
individuals of institutions are given the opportunity to
express their inputs. This was truly a broad-based
consultative process.
On 5th of June, 2002, the Provincial Ministry of Women Development
hosted the consultation for Punjab, chaired by Shaheen
Attiqur Rehman, the then Provincial Minister for Women and
Development and Social Welfare. The exercise was concluded
by Mr. Sohail Sikandar, from MOWD Islamabad. A total of 47
representatives from other Ministries, civil society and
labour unions were present.
On 14th of June, 2002, a provincial consultation for Sindh was held
in Karachi at the office of PILER, hosted by the Directorate
of Social Welfare and Women’s Development. Ms. Sohaila Asif,
the then DG Women’s Rights Wing of the Federal MOWD,
Islamabad took the lead with Mr Qamruddin from the
Provincial MOWD. Mr Mohammad Anwer Golra from the Federal
Ministry of Labour was also in the forefront. Key speakers
included Ms Mehtab Rashidi, Zia Awan and Dr Fouzia Saeed.
On 15th June, 2002, the Provincial Ministry of Women and Development
hosted a provincial consultation for Baluchistan in Serena
Hotel. It was organized by the Directorate of Social
Welfare, Human Rights and Women Development, Baluchistan in
collaboration with AASHA. The key speaker was Mr Tenola, the
then Advocate General of Baluchistan. Participants included
civil society representatives from all over the province,
representatives from the Provincial Ministries of Health,
Education and Interior, scholars and grassroots workers.
On 26th of June, 2002 Social Welfare and Women Development
Department of NWFP hosted a provincial consultation for the
province in collaboration with AASHA. The local partner was
HRDMC. Among the key speakers were Ms Aliya, Secretary
Social Welfare Department, Zarine Imdad Hussain, Director
SWD, SSP Prisons and Secretary, Law Ministry, Additional
Secretary SWD, Zubaida Khatoon, UNICEF, Dr Fouzia Saeed,
AASHA and the chief guest was Mr. Qari Roohullah Madani,
Provincial Minister for Zakat, Social Welfare and Women
Development. Participants included representatives from the
Police Department, Ministry of Interior, Health, Education,
lawyers and civil society representatives from all over the
province.
In all
the above consultations, participants discussed the Code of
Conduct for Gender Justice, gave suggestions to improve it
and fully endorsed its main principles. The suggestions were
incorporated and the final document was prepared.
An
inter-ministerial committee was formed by the Federal
Ministries of Women’s Development and Labour, which also
included representation from the Federal Ministries of
Interior, Health and Education. A series of meetings were
held with the then secretary MOWD, Ms Parveen Agha, as the
chair. The document was improved and vetted by this
Committee and sent it for the final stage of approval at the
Cabinet level.
In August
2002, a high level meeting was convened jointly by the
Minister of Women and Development Dr. Attiya Inayatullah and
Minister of Labour, Owais Ghani, at the office of ILO in
Islamabad. Four federal Secretaries from Ministries of
Women Development, Law and Justice, Labour and Interior were
present along with their key staff. Two representatives from
the labour unions also attended, representing Pakistan’s two
main labour unions. Two representatives from the private
sector attended, representing WEBCOP (a national platform
for management and employee dialog). The attendees from
civil society included representatives from Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan (Mr I. A. Rehman), South Asia
Partnership (Mr Mohammad Tehsin), and HRDMC (Ms. Bushra
Gohar) and Fouzia Saeed with key AASHA members.
Every
word of the Code was discussed and agreed before the
document was signed by both the Ministers from MOWD and
Ministry of Labour. The Minister of Labour particularly
added a section stating that the Establishment Code for the
Civil Service would be amended in light of this document and
the Minister of Women and Development committed that the
Code would get legal cover in the form of legislation.
Following
this agreement, the Code of Conduct was introduced in the
private sector on a voluntary basis with the permission of
the Ministry of Women and Development, as it was agreed that
the legislative process would take time to complete.
Legislation against Sexual Harassment
In 2008,
after six years of successful implementation of the Code of
Conduct in several private sector organizations, it was that
it was time to give it legal cover in order to take it
nationwide. The first free elections in the country since
1997 seemed to be a good time to initiate the process. AASHA
had worked on the lessons gained from implementing the Code
and had made an initial draft of the proposed legislation.
Dr. Saeed
led the process with AASHA members and key stake holders
including the labour unions, in particular Pakistan Worker’s
Federation and the Chambers of Commerce. After discussions
and consultations, two bills were drafted. One to
institutionalize the Code of Conduct for the formal
employment sector, with the intention of transforming the
work environment . Second was an amendment in the Pakistan
Penal Code to cover women anywhere in the country including
the informal employment sector, markets, public places and
in their homes.
The key
contribution of this process was that for the first time in
the history of Pakistan sexual harassment was to be defined
in the law and was declared a crime, both at workplace and
at other places.
Summary Description of the
Protection of Women from Harassment 2009 Bill
This
Draft Bill proposes to institute a Code of Conduct that is
based on the Code developed by this Ministry and AASHA
jointly as mentioned above. The Code of Conduct for Gender
Justice already has been discussed with the above mentioned
Ministries and has undergone a broad based nationwide
consultation. A significant part of the Code has been put by
the Law Ministry in the text of the Act and the rest of it
is in the schedule referred to as the Code of Conduct.
This bill
already incorporates the work and contributions of MOWD and
AASHA. Making the Code legally binding through this bill
will be a step forward and necessary in order to achieve
what this Ministry wanted to achieve through the Code.
Summary Description of the
Code of Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill
In the spirit of gender mainstreaming and conventions like CEDAW
which requires streamlining our laws in the light of its
articles, amending Pakistan Penal Code to include harassment
against women at workplace and public place is in line with
Pakistan’s mandatory obligations under such international
agreements.
This Bill
has proposed an amendment in section 509 of the Pakistan
Penal Code. Therefore section 509 A has been added which
defines sexual harassment and makes it a punishable crime.
Process of the passing of the Legislation so far
The
current Government, particularly the senior representatives
of Pakistan People’s Party took the suggestion to move these
bills in Parliament very positively. The issue of women’s
empowerment in their party platform and the personal values
held by some senior politicians in PPP enabled the
discussions on getting these bills through the government to
move forward. Ms Sherry Rehman, the then Minister for
Information (with additional charge of the Ministry of
Women’s Development) and Mr. Faruk Naek, the then Law
Minister were instrumental in working on these bills. They
had consultations with the civil society and modified the
draft in close consultation with AASHA. In addition, Ms
Shehnaz Wazir Ali and Senator Raza Rabbani remained strong
supporters of the process, helping out AASHA members by
lobbying with Parliamentarians and follow up strategies.
Ms. Shehnaz Wazir Ali, because of her background in the
women’s movement, and Senator Raza Rabbani, because of his
principle-based unblemished career as a politician and a
lawyer, understood the long term positive impact of the
legislation and stood strongly behind it.
The two Bills were review by the Cabinet on the 4th
of November, 2008, formally passed on the 5th of
February 2009. The sexual harassment package was mentioned
as significant accomplishments of the Government in the
President’s speech to the Parliament on 29 March 2009. They
were formally presented to the National Assembly by Mr.
Baber Awan on behalf of the Prime Minister as Government
Bills in early May, 2009.
The PPC
amendment went to the National Assembly’s Committee on Law
and Justice for review, while the Protection from Harassment
at Workplace bill has gone to the Committee on Women’s
Development. After review they will be presented to the
Assembly as separate pieces of legislation. Once passed from
the House they will then go to the Senate for deliberation
and approval.
These
bills have been made on the basis of 10 years of research
and 7 years of direct implementation in Pakistan
organizations on a voluntary basis. The mobilization of the
working women themselves, managements, labour unions, policy
makers and intellectuals has been quite phenomenal. In
addition media helped AASHA in raising awareness of the
issue as well as on the proposed legislation. Therefore, it
is expected that despite the social taboos attached in our
society with sexual harassment, the implementation of the
bills would be better than many other laws of the country.
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