As many as 125 transgender persons would perform the duty of observers during the elections day on 25th and play their vital role in making the polling process transparent and impartial, a report said.
Trained by the Trust for Democratic Education and Accountability (TDEA), the transgender people will be deployed in Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and Quetta.
Four of these individuals belong to Exploration Future Foundation where they are getting education at a school, Gender Guardian.
Earlier, it was reported that in an attempt to make Pakistan’s electoral process more inclusive for the minority members of the society, around 25 transgender persons were appointed by the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) as election observers for the first time.
The decision was announced at a training, ‘Capacity Building Workshop on Election Day Observations’, organised by Fafen in collaboration with the Gender Interactive Alliance (GIA) to promote human rights and active electoral participation of some of the underrepresented groups of society which include persons with disabilities, transgender persons and women.
Moreover, Narowal police, in a commendable move, had come up with the idea to deploy members of the transgender community for election day duty.
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.
