Draft trafficking bill untenable: NCW

New Delhi, July 14: In yet another confrontation with the women and child development ministry, the National Commission of Women has returned to WCD Minister Maneka Gandhi the Draft Trafficking of Persons Bill, calling it “untenable” in its current form.

“We can’t accept this bill. If we make recommendations on it, it would mean we are accepting it in some form,” said a NCW source.

Listing the panel’s objections, the source said, “When there is already a law — Immoral Trafficking ( Prevention) Act — then we need to work within its ambit. Also, the bill doesn’t define trafficking and rehabilitation.”

Over the past 10 days, this is the third issue over which there are differences between the WCD and the NCW.

Earlier, Ms Gandhi was learnt to have expressed her displeasure over the way NCW was pursuing the controversy over Bollywood star Salman Khan’s rape remark.

Later, Lalitha Kumaramangalam had voiced her objections to the WCD ministry’s antitrolling move.

“You can’t police the net. It is an open space, it is like a galaxy almost,” she had told PTI.

The NCW is not the only body to criticise the draft bill. Several NGOs have dubbed the proposed legislation as “vague and full of loopholes” and sought “better, wider and deeper consultation” on it.

Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrashekhar too has written to the ministry on behalf of National Coalition for Protection of our Children over the “shortcomings” of the draft bill.

“The bill suffers from several legislative and procedural flaws,” he said.