Sindh govt urged to pass bill to protect transgender community

Transgender persons, civil society activists and elected representatives on Friday demanded of the Sindh government to pass a bill for the protection of the rights of the transgender community in the province without delay.

The Sub Rang Society, a Karachi-based body campaigning for transgender rights, organised a consultation at a local hotel, where participants said that the government had been making promises for the welfare of the transgender community for the last two years but had done nothing tangible to the alleviate the misery of the community’s members.

They lauded the National Assembly for passing the law guaranteeing basic rights for transgender citizens and outlawing discrimination by both employers and private business owners. “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the first province to come to the rescue of transgender persons, but the Sindh government has not tabled it yet for unknown reasons,” said Kami Sid, a known transgender activist associated with the Sub Rang Society.

She said that her organisation had been working on lobbying with the parliamentarians of the Sindh Assembly to pass a bill. However, she said that, despite some progress, members of Pakistan’s transgender community continued to face violence and discrimination. “Some transgender persons resort to sex work and begging in the streets to support themselves and they often fall victim to violent crimes,” she said.

Sid believed that a rise in violence against transgender persons was mainly because of an increase in the visibility of the community. “We are comparing it with the initial stages of women rights campaigns. When transgender rights activists become active for demanding their rights, violence increases.”

Usman Hakimuddin, another transgender rights activist, in her presentation, discussed the rights of the community and said that the community was facing sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse and discrimination at services and employment.

She also said that there was a rise in violence against the community, especially in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where four transgender persons were killed merely in 2018. Hakimuddin also said that the ages of the majority of the victims were less than 35 years who had been facing harassment at public and workplaces as well as at home. “The perpetrators in most of the cases are family members, friends, police, and strangers,” she said.

She also said victims were reluctant to report incidents to police because of discriminatory behaviours of law enforcement personnel. Inspector Imran Ahmed Khan from the Karachi Police said that police had been acting on complaints of violence against transgender persons.

He stressed the need for an awareness campaign among the people on the rights of the transgender community. Mangla Sharma, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s member Sindh Assembly, said that she had been raising her voice for the rights of marginalized communities, such as transgender persons and minorities. “In the assembly, I also discussed that there should be a two percent quota for transgender persons in employment,” she said.

However, Sharma said that the behaviour of fellow parliamentarians, especially the speaker, was not friendly when someone tried to highlight issues of marginalised communities. In the discussion, various topics, such as the class issue among the community, and personal experiences with dealing with the transgender community, were also discussed.