Rs200m fund allocated for transgender community

Vocational training & rehabilitation centres planned

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa coalition government allocated Rs200 million fund for the transgender community in the fiscal budget for the year 2016-17 unveiled on Tuesday.

However, the government did not specifically mention the fund, the first in the history of the province. Instead the fund was called “Capacity Building of Vulnerable Population.”

However, Finance Minister Muzaffar Said in his budget speech used the name of transgender and stated that a vocational training centre and rehabilitation centre would be established in the province for the transgender community.

However, the civil society and transgender community representatives expressed mixed reaction to the allocation. Qamar Naseem, an activist for the rights of the transgender community, told The News that it was a matter of joy that the provincial government for the first time in history allocated fund for the welfare of the community.

However, he said the government had promised that the fund would be specifically allocated for the community, but astonishingly, the name of the transgender was not mentioned directly in the budget document.

He said that before budget, Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Information and Higher Education Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani had promised that endowment fund would be set up for the transgender community in the budget. However, now in the budget the government allocated the fund in the name of “Capacity-Building of Vulnerable Population,” which is condemnable.

Farzana, the head of TransAction Alliance in KP and Fata, told The News that though the allocation was historic and a matter of great encourage for the transgender community, she demanded the government to specify the fund in the name of transgender community rather naming it as “Capacity Building of Vulnerable Population”.

She said that the transgender community movement is bearing fruits and they would continue the struggle for the rights. The KP transgender community has been in the limelight for the last several months for raising voice for their rights including health, education, inheritance, issuance of Computerised National Identity Cards and jobs in various sectors as per the Supreme Court decision.