Four ministries asked for joint draft of blood screening bill

The Senate Joint Committee has asked four ministries to submit the consensus draft on the Premarital Blood Screening (Family Laws Amendment) Bill, 2016 with reference to blood screening for thalassaemia only. A joint meeting of the Senate Standing Committees on Law, Justice and Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony asked the Ministry of Law, Ministry of Health Services, Ministry of Human Rights and the Ministry of Religious Affairs to sit together and prepare a draft on the Premarital Blood Screening (Family Laws Amendment) Bill, 2016 with reference to blood screening for thalassaemia only.
The meeting was held with Senators Javed Abbasi and Hafiz Hamdullah in the chair here on Wednesday. The scope of the bill by Senator Chaudhary Tanvir Khan was limited to thalassaemia so that the practicality of the blood screening is made easy. The committee and the mover of the bill agreed that other diseases can be included in the ambit of the bill at later stages. The intention of the bill is to spread awareness and stop chances of thalassaemia major, a disease which has no permanent treatment and requires blood transfusion every month.
It is pertinent to mention here that there is high probability of thalassaemia major in child in case both parents have thalassaemia minor. The bill asks for mandatory premarital blood screening to help prevention of thalassaemia major in children. The committee heard members, relevant ministries, National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR) and National Commission on Status of Women (NCSW) whether or not the blood screening should be made mandatory and whether or not option of marriage should be allowed in case of positive results of tests.
Senator Hafiz Hamdullah read out a recommendation made by Council of Islamic Ideology in 2010 which asked for including a column in marriage certificate requiring mention of the disease, but at the same time gave authority to people if they agree on marriage despite suffering from thalassaemia minor.
Senator Chaudhry Tanvir agreed on this recommendation, while Senators Hamza, Sajid Mir and Saleem Zia opposed the provision of choice and said that the couple should be stopped in case of positive results; otherwise the aim of the bill for prevention of the disease might not be achieved.
Chairman NCHR former Justice Chauhan and Chairperson NCSW Khawar Mumtaz, while giving their opinion mentioned similar laws in place in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and South Africa and asked for defining healthy marriage and premarital screening in the bill. It was also stated that before passing the bill, the existing capacity of the government hospitals in Islamabad, having authorised testing labs, giving subsidised service and technical expertise for accurate interpretation has to be considered.
The four ministries while giving their views told the meeting that the bill when passed will be under the religious affairs ministry, but its implementation has to be done by the health services ministry. The human rights ministry recommended focus on awareness in the initial stages of implementation, keeping the screening voluntary and making it binding afterwards. The health services ministry told the meeting that similar bills have been passed by three provinces, but still no difference has been noticeable.
The committee was also told that screening is not mandatory for both partners as the disease is transmittable only in case of thalassaemia minor in both partners. The ministries in their joint draft will also touch upon the mechanism for making the law applicable on minorities.