Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Friday passed ‘KP Commission on the Status of Women Bill 2016’ with an aim to improve performance and efficiency of the commission in promoting rights of women and eliminating discrimination against them. The house during the proceedings held here with Deputy Speaker, Dr Meher Taj Roghani also adopted certain amendments to the bill proposed by Amna Sardar of PML-N and Meraj Humayon of QWP and Uzma Khan of JUI-F while some of the amendments were withdrawn after clarification from Sikandar Hayat Sherpao, KP Senior Minister for Social Welfare and Women Development.

Under the proposed law, the provincial government will constitute a 15-member Commission on the Status of Women to make it an autonomous body and improve its performance for promoting women rights and eliminate all kinds of discrimination against women. The functions of the commission would be examining policy, programs, projects and other measures taken by government for women and gender equality, review provincial laws rules and regulations affecting status and rights of women and suggest repeal, amendments or new legislations essential to eliminate discrimination against women. The commission will monitor the mechanisms and institutional procedures to redress violation of women rights, individual grievances, examine and review policies of each department to address gender concerns would also be in the working ambit of the commission. The commission would have an executive committee comprising Chairperson, Secretary and three other members elected by the commission to oversee implementation of decisions and recommendation of the commission.