Senate passes Zainab Alert Bill.

ISLAMABAD -- The Senate on Wednesday passed the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, 2019, paving the way for the child protection legislation to become a law more than two years after the body of nine-year-old Zainab Ansari, a rape-murder victim, was found in Kasur in 2018. The gory incident had sparked outrage in the country and raised questions over the security of children and responsibilities on the part of the authorities concerned to prevent increasing incidents of child abuse in Pakistan.

The was presented for approval in the upper house by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Azam Swati and was passed despite objections to some of its provisions by opposition lawmakers. The bill, which will have jurisdiction across the country after becoming a law, was already passed by the National Assembly in January this year. As per the draft then presented in the NA, the maximum punishment...