LAHORE, Oct 3: Prime Minister’s Adviser on Women Development Nilofar Bukhtiar said on Monday a bill against domestic violence would soon be tabled in the National Assembly.

Work on a draft law, which would be repealing the Hudood Ordinance was under way on the instructions of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Ms Bakhtiar said at a seminar on ‘Honour killing’, organized by the Ministry of Women Development at Alhamra.

A complaint cell had also been established in the interior ministry to develop a data base for recording cases of violence against women.

The government was taking measure for the empowerment of women and society should play its role in this regard, the adviser said.

The present government had made legislation to ensure respect and honour to women in accordance with the tenets of Islam. She listed some of these steps taken in this regard as the establishment of permanent national commission, legislation on honour-related crimes and formation of women complaints cells, initiating a gender reform programme besides launching $4.3 million Women Political School projects in all four provinces of the country.

Punjab Chief Minister’s Adviser Mowahid Hussain objected to the term honour killing: “Yeh sub say bari baygharati hai, Fironiat hai.”

Killing of innocent women in the name of honour, he said, was an issue of the double standards in society.

Punjab ministers Qudsia Lodhi and Nasim Lodhi, country representative of Oxfam Farhana Farooqi, Barrister Zafarullah also spoke at the seminar which was also attended by parliamentary secretaries Fareeda Sulehri, Shaheena Asad and Shehla Rathore besides a number of women MPAs.