Senate Body Recommends Frequent Public Awareness Messages Across Mainstream Media On Child Abuse

Faizan Hashmi Published January 29, 2020 | 11:40 PM

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Jan, 2020 ) :Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting Wednesday in its meeting recommended to launch frequent public services messages across all media channels to curb the menace of child abuse through massive awareness and education campaign The Committee chair Senator Faisal Javed observed that often work was going on corresponding to current issues prevailing in the society pertaining to the issue of child abuse.

"Zainab Alert bill after being passed by the Senate was in its Committee at present where effective campaign could be made on highlighting the issue to spread awareness as well as create deterrence against such heinous crime," he added.

The Committee discussed in detail the matter of revamping of ptv Network. The matters of importance of public service messages, effective use of PTV Parliament, maintenance of archives by PTV and launching digital media platforms at a wide scale were also discussed.

The Committee also highlighted the issues of unavailability of PTV sports in certain areas, lack of graphic quality and unchecked standards of advertisements.

The matter of non-payment of salaries to working journalists by many private media houses for the last many months was discussed in the Upper House of the Parliament and referred to the Committee for consideration and report to the House.

The Committee recommended that Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) should revisit their law and propose, the committee, amendments needed in order to make a mechanism that licences of private media were linked with timely payment of salaries and proper service agreements and service structures.

The Committee recommended the government to condition payment of upcoming government campaigns to private media houses with payment of all pending salaries of its staff.

The Committee decided to call hearings of the PBA, SECP with data as to how many journalists were registered with them and what percentage of staff have pending payments of salaries.