KARACHI – Transgender community will now be able to serve in Sindh Policeas regular duty officers. Inspector General of Sindh Police, Syed KaleemImam, said that it is time to provide more opportunities to a group that islimited to performing menial jobs in government.
The transgender community first got their due in 2009 after years ofdiscrimination and persecution when the Supreme Court granted them specialstatus with equal rights as that of other citizens.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan also ruled that transgender individuals canreceive national identity cards as ‘third sex’. However, the discriminationprevailed even after that historic verdict.
Imam said that transgender people are God-gifted and citizens like us. “Weshould stand by them,” he said. The transgender community has been facingwidespread discrimination for decades in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India. Amajority is forced to live in seclusion and make ends meet by dancing,begging, or sex work.
According to the 2017 census, 10,418 transgender individuals are living inPakistan. However, the rights group Charity Trans Action Pakistan statesthat there are at least 500,000.
Punjab province has 64.4 per cent of the country’s transgender populationwith 6,709 people registered in the category.
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However, official sources from the social welfare department said thatLahore and its adjoining areas had a population of roughly 30,000transgender people.
The country’s Senate had unanimously approved a bill on March 7, 2018, forthe protection of rights of transgender people, empowering them todetermine their own gender identity
This is not the first time the transgender community in Pakistan will begetting the attention they deserve by the government of Pakistan. Last yearin April, Pakistan had launched the first school for transgender persons inan Islamic state.
