New Delhi, Jan 4 : Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal Today  wrote a letter to Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, urging to reconstitute the Parliamentary Standing Committee set up for deliberating on the Child Marriage (Amendment Bill) 2021.

“I am shocked to learn that the Parliamentary Standing Committee consists of only one woman parliamentarian against 30 male parliamentarians! It is disheartening to note that not only the Committee has negligible representation of women, it is also chaired by a man!” she said.

“In any case, women form half of the population and yet, have abysmal representation in the Parliament. Clearly, it takes a lot of effort for a woman to reach the Parliament.

“The present constitution of the Committee indicates that once a woman reaches the Parliament, even then her struggle is not over, and her voice more often than not, is excluded from the deliberations in the Parliament especially on issues that affect the larger woman population of the country!” she added.

Maliwal demanded the panel set up for deliberating the Bill which aims at raising the marriageable age of girls from 18 to 21 must be chaired by a woman, besides it should also have more than half women MPs as members.

The DCW chief pointed out to the fact that the matter was integral to the future of crores of women.

On Monday, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev, the only woman member of the Committee, wrote to panel chairperson Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and urged him to invite all women MPs to testify on the bill that raises marriaglble age of women to 21.

Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi also wrote a letter to Naidu to ensure participation of more women when the Bill is debated in the Committee.(UNI)