ISLAMABAD - President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday signed the National Commission on Status of Women (NCSW) Bill 2012 into law.
On the International day for women, he signed the bill and expressed the hope that the Commission would play a significant role as a watchdog of women rights. He said that promotion of their rights was part of the struggle of the PPP. He also said that the bill would empower the women.
He said that the subsequent PPP governments appointed women to the high courts, created special family courts headed by women judges and special women’s police to investigate crimes against women.
“For the first time in our history we have, under the government, a woman speaker, a woman foreign minister and a woman our ambassador to the US. We have a separate ombudsperson for women,” he noted. The bill was unanimously approved by the National Assembly and Senate on January 19 and February 2.
The mandate of the commission is to review laws, policies and mechanism with gender perspective and to come up with policy recommendations.
The ceremony was attended by Senate Chairman Farook H Naek, National Assembly Speaker Fehmida Mirza, Goodwill Ambassador on Women Empowerment Fiza Batool Gilani, Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan, members of the parliament, commission and civil society.