Sindh bans underage employment

The Sindh Assembly on Wednesday unanimously passed 'The Sindh Prohibition of Employment of Children Bill, 2017" into a law to ban underage employment in the province. Following the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the Sindh government carried out the legislation to outline strict punishment of Rs 50,000 fine and six month imprisonment for the offenders. The law bans employing a younger than 14-year-old person.
Sindh Senior Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, tabled the bill for consideration in the house. He told the house that after the 18th Constitutional Amendment, it is now the provincial government's jurisdiction to legislate laws to protect poor children from economic exploitation.
He said that child labouring on low wages was an old issue in the country. The minister said that his party's government was evolving a law to safeguard the underage children from economic exploitations. MQM's veteran, Syed Sardar Ahmed, appreciated the law and invited the attention of the government towards miserable condition of household working children. "It is imperative that the government should include the household underage workers in the same law," to protect their rights. Khuhro said that the government was going to introduce a separate law for the protection of the household workers.
Supporting the law, PML-F's legislator Nusrat Sehar Abbasi said: "It is the need of the hour to have such legislation." She, however, complained that since the members of the opposition were provided with the copies of the bill late, they could not have much time to go through it and place their proposals. "The government had passed the law in haste," she remarked.
The opposition voiced concerns over 'threats' to a classical female dancer - Sheema Kirmani. Raising the issue in the house, lawmaker Abbasi asked the Sindh government to step up security for Ms Kirmani as some unknown people have been threatening her. Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah told the house that his government had sent a letter to the Interior Ministry, demanding action against the terrorists.
The CM also lambasted the Hesco and Sesco for resorting to prolonged power cuts, saying that "if they cannot supply electricity to the people in Sindh, then they should wind up and quit". The assembly will meet on Thursday at 10am.