An attack on a transgender person at her home in Mansehra has once again highlighted the plight of the trans community in Pakistan, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Though the victim survived, the fact that this incident transpired mere days after the August 16th murder of a transgender woman named ‘Naso’ in Peshawar, shows that KP’s beleaguered transgender and intersex community remain under serious threat. According to Trans Action — an organised community movement dedicated to making KP a safer and more tolerant province for transgender individuals — there have been 479 violent attacks on the community in 2018 alone, including eight murders.
Sadly, KP’s allegedly reformed police force’s response to the problem has been rather lacklustre. According to TransAction, instead of providing the trans community with additional security, the KP police have instead advised them to stay indoors after 10 PM. This amounts to nothing but sweeping the problem under the rug. Furthermore, apart from sex work, the only avenue the transgender community has to earn a living is dancing at weddings and musical events. Thus, should the trans community apply this curfew to itself, more of its members will have to turn to sex work to survive. This will only result in more violent attacks, apart from increasing the emotional anguish experienced by the already mariginalised community.
KP police’s attitude also came under public scrutiny this January after the gang rape of an 18-year old transgender individual in Peshawar’s Gulbahar area. According to reports, not only did the police fail to send the victim for a medico-legal checkup, they also didn’t file an FIR until Chief Justice Saqib Nisar took notice of the incident. As such, it is the province’s police force, which should be partly blamed for the rising frequency of violent attacks on transgender persons. Lack of action encourages zealots to target trans persons.
The KP government must take notice of this disturbing phenomenon and take swift action. It should ensure that the province’s police force treat trans individuals as equal citizens. More importantly, the provincial government should attempt to change how the transgender community is perceived by society at large through public awareness campaigns and educational reforms. *
Published in Daily Times, August 20th 2018.