PESHAWAR, SEPT 14 /DNA/ – The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) issued a condemnation on Sunday after it was reported that an 11-member committee of elders had declared that all transgender persons would be expelled from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swabi district.
“The HRCP strongly condemns the reported decision by community elders in Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to form a committee aimed at expelling transgender persons from the district. Such actions are unconstitutional, discriminatory and amount to incitement to violence against an already marginalised community,” the HRCP said in a statement on X.
It added that “no citizen can be deprived of the right to reside, work or earn a livelihood anywhere in Pakistan on the basis of gender identity”.
The human rights body called on the provincial and district authorities to “immediately ensure the safety and dignity of transgender persons in Swabi and uphold their fundamental rights under the Constitution and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018”.
The committee of elders in question comprises the tehsil president of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Maulana Abdul Samad Haqqani and others.
From the committee, Maulana Samad has said that they want transgender persons to leave the district peacefully and earn their livelihoods elsewhere “because as long as they live here, music shows will [continue to] be arranged, negatively impacting the youth”.
Similarly, another committee member, Yasir Khan, has said that in the first phase, transgender persons would be asked to peacefully leave the district, and if that doesn’t happen, district police would be approached.
