{"id":10102,"date":"2018-05-10T16:47:26","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T11:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=10102"},"modified":"2018-05-10T16:47:26","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T11:02:26","slug":"pakistan-passes-landmark-transgender-rights-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/pakistan-passes-landmark-transgender-rights-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan passes landmark transgender rights law"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article-heading-author-wrap\">\n<div class=\"article-heading-author-img\">\n<div class=\"article-heading-author-name\">\n<div class=\"article-duration\">Asad Hashim\/Pakistan (Pahichan) May 10 &#8211; Pakistan&#8217;s parliament has passed a law guaranteeing basic rights for transgender citizens and outlawing discrimination by both employers and private business owners, a move hailed by activists as &#8220;historic&#8221; for the conservative South Asian country.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Members of parliament voted to pass the wide-ranging\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.senate.gov.pk\/uploads\/documents\/1521612511_419.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act<\/a>\u00a0in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The law accords citizens the right to self-identify as male, female or a blend of both genders, and to have that identity registered on all official documents, including National Identification Cards, passports, driver&#8217;s licenses and education certificates.<\/p>\n<p>The law guarantees citizens the right to express their gender as they wish, and to a gender identity that is defined as &#8220;a person&#8217;s innermost and individual sense of self as male, female or a blend of both, or neither; that can correspond or not to the sex assigned at birth&#8221;.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-also-read article-embed-tb-block article-embedded-card \">\n<div class=\"topic-label\">READ MORE<\/div>\n<h4><a class=\"article-embed-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/03\/pakistan-transgender-community-takes-step-180305081113645.html\">Pakistan&#8217;s transgender community takes another step forward<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;I thought that this would never be achieved in my lifetime, but I am fortunate to have seen my own parliament pass this bill,&#8221; veteran transgender activist Bindiya Rana told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In fighting for this bill, we were not fighting for those transgender people who have already lived 40 or 50 years,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We have been fighting for the next generation of transgender Pakistanis.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Shunned by society<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>While no reliable official figures exist for the number of transgender citizens in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/pakistan.html\">Pakistan<\/a>, advocacy group Trans Action has estimated that at least 500,000 of the country&#8217;s 207 million population identifies as transgender.<\/p>\n<p>The country&#8217;s 2017 national census put the number of transgender citizens at 10,418, a number that has been widely disputed by members of the community.<\/p>\n<div data-embed-type=\"Brightcove\" data-embed-id=\"5359660089001\">\n<table class=\"in-article-item video\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div class=\"mceVideoBox\">\n<div id=\"bcvid_5359660089001\">\n<div>\n<div><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/players.brightcove.net\/665003303001\/BkyLdqdhZ_default\/index.html?videoId=5359660089001\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div class=\"meta\"><strong>WATCH:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/video\/news\/2017\/03\/pakistan-include-transgenders-census-170315092222325.html\">Pakistan to include transgenders in new census<\/a><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>Often shunned by mainstream society, Pakistani transgender citizens find themselves vulnerable to being forced into begging, sex work or dancing to survive.<\/p>\n<p>South Asian society\u00a0also\u00a0has, however, traditionally venerated transgender people &#8211; particularly transgender women, known as Khwaja Sirah &#8211; as having spiritual powers and the ability to bestow blessings upon others.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have been considered only fit to sing and dance at weddings, and that&#8217;s it,&#8221; said Rana.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have been facing human rights violations in that we are denied jobs based on our status,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Police will not file cases if someone has committed a crime against us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Several attacks targeting transgender activists\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/hrcp-web.org\/publication\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/State-of-Human-Rights-in-2017.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">took place<\/a>\u00a0in Pakistan last year, particularly in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>The new law explicitly bans any discrimination against transgender citizens by employers, educational institutions, healthcare providers, transportation service providers and any private business or service provider.<\/p>\n<p>It also calls for the establishment of government-run protection centres for transgender citizens who feel at risk.<\/p>\n<p>It guarantees transgender citizens their right to inheritance &#8211; often disputed under some interpretations of Islamic law &#8211; to run for public office, to assembly, to have access to public places and several other specific rights.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"article-quotebox\"><p>We have been considered only fit to sing and dance at weddings, and that&#8217;s it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blockquote-writer\">BINDIYA RANA, TRANSGENDER ACTIVIST<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Activists in the community say that while there are concerns regarding the implementation of the law, it is a huge step forward for transgender rights in Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I believe that it will make a positive impact on the ground,&#8221; said Mehlab Jameel, who was one of several rights activists and lawyers involved in drafting the legislation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Laws can only go so far with a community that is so marginalised, especially economically, that they often don&#8217;t know what their own rights are,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p>Jameel said the new law also provides a base for activists to amend other sections of Pakistan&#8217;s criminal and penal code that are problematic or create grey areas around crimes committed against transgender citizens.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The majority of people in the community never want to report sexual violence, rape or harassment, because they are worried that they could be blamed by the police.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So, this law allows us to do further advocacy work to amend other problematic laws and policies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty International&#8217;s Pakistan researcher Rabia Mehmood praised the move.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This bill makes Pakistan one of the few countries in the world to recognise the self-perceived gender identity of transgender individuals,&#8221; Mehmood said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The country&#8217;s transgender community has very high hopes from this bill. Its implementation is therefore crucial to ensure they can live their lives with dignity and respect.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Copy :\u00a0www.aljazeera.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Asad Hashim\/Pakistan (Pahichan) May 10 &#8211; Pakistan&#8217;s parliament has passed a law guaranteeing basic rights for transgender citizens and outlawing discrimination by both employers and private business owners, a move hailed by activists as &#8220;historic&#8221; for the conservative South Asian country.<\/p>\n<p>Members of parliament voted to pass the wide-ranging\u00a0Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act\u00a0in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday.<br \/>\nThe law accords citizens the right to self-identify as male, female or a blend of both genders, and to have that identity registered on all official documents, including National Identification Cards, passports, driver&#8217;s &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":10103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[621,492,490,11],"tags":[745,458],"class_list":["post-10102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-opinion","category-slider","category-world","tag-pakistan","tag-transgender"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10104,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10102\/revisions\/10104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}