Violence against transvestites shoots up in recent years

PESHAWAR: Violence against the members of the transgender community in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other parts of the country has increased sharply in recent years.

The incidents of murder, attempted murder, harassment and sexual assaults against the transgender community have been taking place frequently since 2015.

There is a huge difference in data compiled by the law-enforcement agencies and the groups working for the rights of the transvestites.

However, one thing is common in both figures that most of the incidents were recorded after 2015, probably because mainstream and social media started highlighting violence against transvestites.

Around 13 cases of violence against transgender persons were registered with the police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2017. According to officials, it is the highest number of incidents reported against the community in recent years.

“Six cases of violence against the transvestites were reported in Peshawar while some cases were reported in Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi, Kohat and Mansehra during 2017. These cases included that of murder, attempted murder, rape, harassment and kidnapping,” an official told The News.

Transgender persons, with the majority associated with the profession of dancing and singing, have recently been given many rights that were earlier denied to them by the government and the society.

They have been given quota in employment and issued computerized national identity cards, driving licences and other facilities over the last few years.

Marvia Malik became the first ever transgender anchor in Pakistan after appearing on a television channel.

However, the attacks on the community didn’t come to an end. A couple of attacks on transgender persons were reported in Peshawar during the last one week.

In the first incident on March 28, a transgender named Chutki and her friend were attacked and killed by armed motorcyclists on the Ring Road near Faqirabad when they left Iqbal Plaza on Dilazak Road in an auto-rickshaw.

A few days later, a transgender person was injured in Gulbahar and was taken to hospital. There were reports that attackers tried to kidnap her.

In January, a transgender person was attacked and wounded in the limits of the Phandu Police Station in Peshawar. “The record of the registered cases reveals that there was no incident of attack on transvestites in any part of the province between 2002 and 2010. One case of illegal confinement and sexual assault was reported in 2011. No case of violence was reported in 2012 and 2013,” said Waqar Ahmad, director public relations of the KP Police.

In 2014, a transgender person was attacked and wounded in Peshawar and another was killed in Kohat. Since then, the incidents kept increasing.

In 2015, the number of cases reported by the police shot up to seven which included murders, wounds and sexual assaults.

The worst attack took place in Yar Hussain village in Swabi district where armed men tried to kidnap the transvestites who were performing at a function.

On offering resistance, the armed men opened fire and killed two persons and injured another. One transvestite was kidnapped and reportedly gang-raped.

In 2016, the police registered nine cases of violence against transvestites. Seven incidents happened in Peshawar.

The authorities were widely criticised for failing to protect members of the transgender community when a transvestite, Alisha, was attacked in Faqirabad locality in May 2016.

Alisha was shot eight times and was rushed to the Lady Reading Hospital where she died allegedly due to lack of proper medical care.

The community protested the attack and negligence of the doctors by placing the body outside the Faqirabad Police Station.

According to Chutki, a transgender from Peshawar, she approached the police a number of times after receiving life threats.

However, her concerns couldn’t move the local police until attackers mistakenly killed her namesake along with her friend in Faqirabad recently.

Activists working for the rights of transvestites claimed that 253 attacks were carried out on the transgender community members in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2017. They said the attacks included seven murders.

“During the first quarter of the current year, the number of attacks has reached 57, including one murder. The murderers had threatened a transvestite, Chutki, but mistakenly shot dead her namesake,” Qamar Naseem, an activist working for the rights of transgender community and programme coordinator for Blue Veins NGO, told The News.

He added that many incidents in most of the districts of KP and other provinces of the country are not being reported because there is no system for compiling the data. He believed that the attacks against transvestites also happened in the past, but there was no proper system before 2015 to report and record it.

“As many as 54 transgender persons have been killed since 2015. Out of these, 42 were killed by their own partners (friends). The number of other kind of violence against the transvestites was 1,153,” said Qamar Naseem. He claimed the number of reported cases is a mere 20 per cent of the total attacks against the community. He added that most of the attacks were reported in Peshawar followed by Mardan, Swabi, Swat and Bannu.