Zainab Alert Bill

The passage of the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, 2019 by the Senate shows the government’s seriousness towards eliminating the scourge of child abuse. Now that both Houses of parliament have cleared the bill it will inspire public confidence, spur the state machinery to act to apprehend the culprits and reduce the feeling of insecurity among children and their parents. The stringent punishments would also deter potential child abusers.

Under the provisions of the bill, SHOs will have to register first information report within two hours after receiving a complaint about a missing or abducted child. The SHOs who fail to do so will face two years in prison and a fine of up to Rs100,000 besides dismissal from service. At present due to lax laws, the police sometimes refuse to register an FIR when a child is reported missing. This leads to the wastage of initial crucial time after the child’s disappearance, sometimes even aiding the culprit to escape the law. Now, after a few amendments to the bill, it will cover all crimes against children, and special courts will be bound to decide child abuse cases within three months. In the draft of the bill presented in the National Assembly, the maximum punishment for child abuse and killing was life imprisonment with a fine of Rs1 million. Now the maximum sentence will be 10 years.

A helpline will be set up to report missing children while the government will establish the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Agency (ZARRA), to issue an alert for a missing child. The agency will coordinate with the relevant federal and provincial authorities and LEAs and maintain an online database of all children reported missing or abducted with their current status. The police will inform ZARRA about an incident of a missing or kidnapped child within two hours after receiving such a report, and after the agency directly receives such information, it will inform the police station concerned immediately.

The rape and killing of six-year-old Zainab Ansari in Jan 2018 has prompted the legislation. We shall never let down the innocent girl.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2020.

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