ISLAMABAD-Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration has announced new initiatives for the transgender community in the city so as to pull them out of the helplessness they have been facing in life.
The initiative comprises a package that includes opening of an Islamic centre and monetary assistance with the help of private sector besides announcement of jobs for the transgender community of Islamabad in the ICT departments. Deputy Commissioner Islamabad, Muhammad Hamza Shafqaat participated in the inauguration ceremony of the Islamic centre where he announced several jobs for the transgender community of Islamabad. He also distributed blankets, quilts and ration among the transgender community. Transgender people face different challenges in the country. The marginalized community faces stigmatization, social exclusion and consequent banishment from the society that makes transgender people’s life even tougher. Majority of them have been found having indulged in inappropriate conducts as selling sex and substance abuse. The transgender community is socially excluded in the society where they experience high levels of physical abuse and face discriminatory behavior in daily life. Such attitudes make them vulnerable, forcing them to become commercial sex workers and begging. Passed in 2018, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act ensures the right to be recognized as per one’s perceived gender identity and guarantees fundamental rights, including of inheritance, education, employment, voting, holding public office, health, access to public spaces and property, to transgender citizens. Many of the community members are abandoned by the family. They share house with a group of residents and often come on streets to beg. They could hardly get education which pushes them further down the society.
Addressing the ceremony, DC Islamabad lamented that majority of the transgenders were illiterate, however, he promised jobs for those having double MA qualification. He asked the graduate community members to submit their credentials so that the district administration could consider them for the jobs in the ICT departments.