Bill on protection of women against workplace harassment becomes law

Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Amendment) Act, 2022 was notified on Friday and officially enacted into law, the Ministry of Human Rights said.

“It marks an important step in strengthening & increasing the ambit of the law,” the ministry said on its official Twitter handle.

Earlier this month, the bill was passed by the National Assembly after upper house of parliament approved amendments in the legislation.

According to the official document issued by the human rights ministry, the bill received the assent of the president on January 21 and it will come into force at once.

The bill was drafted by the Ministry of Human Rights to facilitate increased participation of women in the workforce and to remove the lacunas present in the protection against harassment law in Pakistan.

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The bill increases the ambit and scope of the law to include certain professions and employment models that the current legislation does not expressly mention and provides protection from harassment to people engaged in all types of work – formal and informal.

The Act will also provide clarity with respect to different kinds of harassment that take place at the workplace in order to provide further clarity to the issue.

The bill aims to amend the definitions provided in the Act; particularly those of “complainant”, “employee”, “employer”, “harassment” & “workplace” to remove ambiguities that litigants have faced and to increase the scope of workplace to include all forms and categories of work.

The bill also aims to set timelines for appeals against orders of the Ombudsman under the Act.