New Delhi: Days after Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sushmita Dev was made the only woman in the parliamentary panel to examine the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, DMK MP Kanimozhi on Wednesday demanded the Centre to form a new all-woman panel to scrutinise the bill.
Union Minister Smriti Irani introduced the Bill in Lok Sabha that was sent to a 31-member panel to examine it, of which the only woman is Sushmita Dev. Speaking to the media, Kanimozhi said as quoted by ANI news agency, "I object to a single woman MP being made part of a parliamentary panel to examine the bill on the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 & appeal to the central government to form a new panel consisting of women representatives."
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"There are a total of 110 female MPs but the govt. chooses to assign a bill that affects every young woman in the country to a panel that has 30 men and only 1 woman. Men will continue to decide the rights of women. And women will be made mute spectators," Kanimozhi tweeted.
Besides Kanimozhi, other woman MPs have also appealed to the government to consider more women for examination of the Bill. One among them is, NCP MP Supriya Sule as she opined inviting other woman MPs would make the discussion more inclusive.
After being the only woman to be on the parliamentary committee to go through the bill, the TMC MP Sushmita Dev told PTI, "I wish there were more woman MPs in the committee but we will make sure all interest groups are heard."
Besides raising the bar for legal marriage age for women, this Bill amends seven personal laws -- the Hindu Marriage Act, the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, the Indian Christian Marriage Act, the Special Marriage Act, the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act and the Foreign Marriage Act. This entangled the bill in controversy as several MPs raised their voice against the breaching of personal laws.