Six female Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) members of the NWFP Assembly have submitted a draft bill aiming to protect veiled or fully covered women against discrimination on the basis of dress. The bill was submitted with the NWFP Assembly Secretariat and the JI MPAs hoped to put it up for debate in the current session, MPA Shagufta Naz told Daily Times on Wednesday. “We submitted the bill following complaints from women that they were discriminated against for their choice of dress,” she said, adding that she had decided to draft the bill to protect women who faced such discrimination in schools, colleges and the public sector. However, a women’s rights activist disputed Shagufta’s claim by saying the bill was tabled because of Madeeha Gohar’s banned ‘Burqavaganza’ play. The play was banned in April following criticism from Islamic parties, supposedly because it “ridiculed women who wear the burqa and the burqa itself”. “There has not been a single complaint from any girl or woman claiming they were being discriminated against on the basis of their dress,” Rakhshanda Naz, resident director of woman advocacy organisation Aurat Foundation, told Daily Times. The draft bill proposed that discrimination against female workers or students on the basis of their dress should be a punishable offence. A month-long imprisonment or Rs 15,000 fine or both were proposed as penalty for people found guilty of discriminating against veiled women.