Narowal police, in a commendable move, has come up with the idea to deploy members of the transgender community for election day duty, a private media outlet reported on Wednesday.
According to media reports, the decision of lending a hand from transgender persons on July 25 was taken by the police in the wake of shortage of female police officers.
Narowal district police have only 23 female officers, whereas at least 117 officers are needed for the election day duty. In order to meet the required count, several police stations in Narowal are interviewing transgender persons to fill the gap.
The total number of registered transgender persons in Narowal is 95.
“We will fulfill our duty wholeheartedly if deployed on the election day,” a member of transgender community vowed.
A few days earlier, the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), an independent think-tank, appointed around 25 transgender persons to work for the organisation as election observers.
According to the organisation, the job of the transgender persons, as election observers, is to observe and note down any violation of rights or act of discrimination against the vulnerable sections of the society at polling stations in the upcoming general elections on July 25.
Any direct violations and observations would immediately be conveyed to presiding officers while survey forms would be filled by the electoral observers to report incidents of political and electoral violence. The form will then be submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) at the end of the day.
