Transgender rights bill to be tabled in Punjab PA: minister

LAHORE: Provincial Minister for Human Rights and Minority Affairs Ijaz Alam Augustine while addressing a workshop on Wednesday has said that Punjab govt has proactively worked on registration of transgender persons.

Ijaz Alam Augustine said affirmative action to mainstream transgender persons needed to be made in order to establish their status in the society as all human beings are born free and equal. “A bill of protection of transgender community rights will be tabled in Punjab Assembly soon,” he said.

He said that for the first time in the history of Pakistan, Punjab govt was working on initiatives for transgender community including birth registration with Nadra, comprehensive law to include transgender persons as aggrieved or victims in cases of violence against them and ensuring inheritance rights of the transgender persons.

The provincial minister was told that according to the 2017 census, the number of eunuchs in Pakistan is 10,418 out of which 6,709 live in Punjab.

The issues of Protection of Rights Act 2018, problem identification, analysis and assessment of severity, sexual identification and fundamental rights, advocacy and lobbying skills and issues of data collection were discussed in the workshop.