ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: Civil society organisations have expressed their concern over politicisation of women’s rights bill. “After a lot of unnecessary dilly dallying to table the Women Protection Bill (WPB) in the National Assembly for passage, an extremely watered down piece of legislation has been presented and passed. The last minute amendment proposed by the law ministry to include lewdness in the bill is a clear indication that a self-proclaimed moderate government has once again succumbed to the pressures of religious parties - its political cronies and cohorts,” the civil society organisations said in a joint statement.

These included Women Action Forum, Pattan Development Organisation, SDPI, ActionAid, Sungi, Aurat Foundation, Rozan, The Network, PODA, SPO and the HRCP.

The statement said: “Though the newly passed WPB offers some relief to rape victims by allowing the prosecution of the crime under Pakistan Penal Code, yet we still fear that it will not make any significant difference to the problems women and men from the marginalised sections will face due to a clause on adultery in the Hudood Ordinance.”

The organisations regretted that the bill included fornication under section 496B which has a great potential to be abused and misused against women and poor in future. They condemned the government for the inclusion of fornication clause in the bill on the recommendation of an extra-constitutional body i.e. the Ulema committee.

They also regretted that the self-proclaimed liberal parties did not express their reservation on this clause during the parliamentary debate on the bill.