Chitwan(Pahichan) July 13 – Members from sexual and gender minorities have urged not to curtail the rights already mentioned in the draft constitution. They made such request to the officials of Constituent Assembly (CA) members through telephone conservation.  National Federation of Sexual and Gender minorities Simran Sherchan asked to ensure their right as fundamental right like female, male, Dalit and children in new constitution.   

Members of Secretariat asked the communities to provide their feedback in a written form. Speaking at an interaction program entitled Draft Constitution and Rights of Gender and Sexual Minorities, Sherchan telephoned at the Secretariat. Participants from Bara, Parsa, Rautahat, Makawanpur, Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur , kavre among others said they are very aware to ensure their rights in the new constitution.

Vice-Chairman of Blue Diamond Society said the community has been deprived from rights till now and rights ensure in draft constitution should be continued. Secretary of Society Manoranjan Kumar Baidhya said all should be cautious to preserve the rights. Advocate Prem Bahadur Thapa said there are still some people who are not in favor of giving rights to LGBTI. He underlined the need of creating pressure to ensure right in new constitution.

Thapa said 299 discriminatory provisions of Civil and Criminal Code should be deleted from and it is necessary to write in the new constitution. Those rights have been incorporated in new constitution as second CA took the ownership of decisions made by first CA. In the previous CA, Sunil Babur Panta was the lawmaker from LGBTI community.

Transgender Sandhya Lama, Raju  Baral, Anjali Thapa, Suraj Thapa, Dev Shrestha, Amit Adhikari Sirju Thapa among others demanded the reservation for LGBTI community in the new constitution.  As they received citizenship under wrong category, they demanded that they should get citizenship now under O category.

The day project of Blue Diamond Society organized interaction for the purpose of creating awareness. Similarly, at a program organized in Itahari, Advocate Sujan panta said the rights ensured in Draft Constitution should be continued in the final constitution.

He suggested raising their issues when lawmakers collect public opinion. Earlier, Society organized interaction at Nepalgunj, Pokhara and Dhangadi. In the Dhangadi, Chairman of Society Pinki Gurung, Sanjaya Sharma, In Pokhara Bhumika Shrestha and Apashya Dahal   informed about the draft constitution and rights of LGBTI.