EDITORIAL: It is heartening to see the transgender people in this country get, slowly but surely, their due rights as equal citizens. In a progressive, affirmative action move on Monday the Sindh Assembly unanimously passed the Sindh Civil Servants (Amendment) Bill, 2021, fixing 0.5 percent quota (their number being 2,527 as per the 2017 census) for the third sex in public sector institutions, promising to ensure they have the same quota in the private sector as well.
Punjab has already announced quotas for the transgender community. The other two provinces also need to follow suit. The first most important step in that direction was taken by the Supreme Court in 2012 when it ordered the NADRA to introduce third gender category for the issuance of national identity cards and registration according to their self-perceived gender identity.
That paved the way for them to vote, obtain passport, and claim inheritance rights. Later, Parliament passed a more comprehensive legislation, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018, that aside from incorporating these rights also prohibited harassment, violence, and discrimination against transgender persons.
This segment of society has suffered for far too long, subjected to blatant discrimination, humiliation, even violence. Disowned by their families, most of them have lived as an ostracised community, earning their means of subsistence from dancing at other people’s happy occasions, such as weddings and births of male children.
Not anymore, social norms having undergone significant changes. Now they can be seen at traffic signal stops or in markets begging and/or seeking customers for sex work, which often times leads to violence. In one such case back in 2016 in Peshawar, a transgender person was grievously wounded by a disgruntled customer, and taken to one of the city’s best known hospitals where she died, according to her fellow transsexual friends, because considering her gender the medical staff wouldn’t give her proper attention. Thanks to the 2018 law, at least they have legal protection against violence and discrimination.
Well-educated transgender persons, sought after for their innovative fashion designing skills, are already dominating and transforming the fashion industry, though others in different professions may still need to hide their sexual identity. Quota fixation should remove that constraint to a considerable extent.
However, important as they are, laws per se do not ensure compliance. Punjab, for example, has reserved three percent government jobs for people with disabilities, one percent in each category. Yet the visually impaired persons have been staging street protests, and facing police violence for demanding their promised share in jobs. Clearly, it is enough for the federal or provincial governments to enact good laws. The Sindh government, therefore, ought to ensure implementation of the reserved quota for the transgender persons.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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