Civil society demands suo motu in maid torture case

Urges CJP to order police to add trafficking sections to FIR

ISLAMABAD:

The civil society on Sunday demanded of the Chief Justice of Pakisan (CJP) Justice Umar Ata Bandial to take suo motu notice and order the police to add section pertaining to trafficking to the first information report (FIR) in the case of the under-age maid case. The girl who was employed at the house of a civil judge in Islamabad was brutally tortured, allegedly by the judge’s wife.

The Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO) as well as other civil society organizations have been holding weekly protests across the country for justice in the case of the minor domestic worker.

“We have often seen that even if an accused is arrested, no actual conviction is ever made. They are simply just acquitted,” said SSDO’s Kausar Abbas while urging the CJP to take action.

He said that the case was “a textbook example of trafficking”. This is a non-bailable offence and according to Section 7 of the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act, 2018, the court may not consider the consent of victim, parents or guardian' as a defence of employing children under forced labour.

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Khurram Malik, also of SSDO, said that this was a clear case of compelled labour as defined in the act. “But the police are unwilling to add sections 3 and 4 of the Act to the FIR.”

He said that according to Section 3 (1) of the Act, the offence is defined as “any person who recruits, harbours, transports, provides or obtains another person, or attempts to do so, for compelled labour or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud or coercion, commits an offence of trafficking in persons and shall be punished with imprisonment”.

“Section 4 defines aggravating circumstances as serious injury, life-threatening illness or death of the victim or another person. This would further carry a penalty of up to fourteen years and Rs2 million fine,” he continued.

It is evident that Rizwana's case is exactly as described under the human trafficking law, he added.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2023.