Transgender folks demand KP police to ensure protection from bigotry, violence

PESHAWAR/KARACHI: The Trans Action Community (TAC) on Monday put forth its demand to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police to ensure the safety and security of transgender folks in Mardan and to take strict action against elements involved in the violence against them.

Addressing a joint press conference here at the Peshawar Press Club, TAC President Farzana Jan and other transfolks spoke about the violence and torture that Shakeela, a transgender person from Mardan, was subjected to on Eid-ul-Fitr.

Three men brutally beat Shakeela and shaved off her head, they said, adding that the alleged perpetrators were absconding and have not arrested to date.

They added that the suspects were influential people and still making threats whereas the local police were just being "silent spectators" and not taking any action. According to Jan, the suspects had made an extortion demand of Rs1 million from Shakeela prior to the assault.

Mardan police, they noted, had earlier refused to register a first information report (FIR) against one of the suspects, Shahzeb, but did so only when the TAC intervened in the matter.

They said they appeal the government and the provincial administration to guarantee protection for transfolks against bigotry and violence.

Separately, many transfolks have relocated from Mardan to other areas due to fear of the same suspects as well as other hate crimes, said Jan, who made headlines back on in June 2017 when she was issued a passport with an X to symbolise the third sex.

Anti-transgender violence is not uncommon in Pakistan. Many transfolks — who, according to the Supreme Court's defition of “hijras," include transvestites, transsexuals and eunuchs — are frequently attacked, murdered, raped or forced to work as sex workers to support themselves. Others eke out a living by begging for alms on the streets.

However, the hate crimes against transgender people in the KP province is far more concerning considering how the region — including Peshawar, Nowshera, Mardan, Buner, Swabi, Swat, and Bannu — is a hotbed of anti-transgender violence.

A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report titled "Events of 2018" had noted that according to local group Trans Action, some 479 attacks against transgender people were reported in KP in 2018.

"At least four transgender women were killed there in 2018, and at least 57 have been killed there since 2015. On May 4, the fatal shooting of Muni, a transgender woman in Mansehra district, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, attracted national attention," it read.