ISLAMABAD: During the last three decades no legislation was made to protect the rights of minorities in Pakistan.

Moreover, through the 18th constitutional amendment in 2010, the chapter relating to minorities was handed over to provinces, further narrowing the scope for them.

This was stated by Advocate Ali Imran at a `consultative meeting on draft bills on hate crimes and births, deaths and marriages` organised by an NGO, Pattan, at a local hotel on Tuesday.

He said most of the legislation on minorities was done in 19thcentury andlaterincorporatedinto the Constitution.

The Constitution says that every citizen has equal rights, while under Article 36, the state shall safeguard the interests and rights of the minorities. However, during the last three decades, no legislation was made to protect the rights of minorities, he said.

Mr Imran, who played a role in drafting the bills, said the environment was now suitable to table the bills in parliament, claiming 78 parliamentarians had been taken on board over the rights of minorities and hate speeches.

He said the major reason for violence against minorities was the hate speech, adding there is no definition of a biased motivated crime. Social media is being used for hate crimes, he added.

`We have suggested that there should be punishment for hate speeches on the social media. Moreover, political parties should be made bound to give tickets to minorities on the general seats.` He said five per cent of the winnable seats should be given to minorities and out of them two per cent should be allotted to women.

The registration of birth, wedding and death is also a big issue. `Churches don`t provide the record of weddings to the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) due to which we have suggested that through the legislation the churches should be bound to provide the record to Nadra, he said. A representative of Bahai community, who requested not to be named, told Dawn that minorities do not want the stamp of parliament that they have married or their children are legal.

`Whenever a child gets married out of the country, the embassy concerned asks for a marriage certificate issued by Nadra as a proof that they are husband and wife. But Nadra refuses to register the marriage,` he said.

In Pakistan, legislation takes lots of time, so there should be an arrangement under which the marriage certificate should be issued by Nadra. He said under an executive order Nadra can be directed to issue marriage certificates to minorities and if there is any doubt it can be counter-attested by the ministry of minorities.

`Moreover, if a bill has to be tabled in parliament, it should be for all minorities not just for Christians,` he said.

However, Advocate Imran said wedding record of Muslims was registered with the union councils and sent to Nadra as they have family laws. Similarly, in the bill there is a mention of the church because except Christians no other minority community has the family laws.

Social activist Dr Rakhshinda Parveen said mostly laws about Muslim women were discussed but no one spoke about minority women.