MUMBAI/LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Pakistan’s transgender community faced pushback at the country’s general election on Wednesday as five transgender candidates failed to win office and transgender observers and voters were blocked from polling stations, campaigners said.
The transgender community had hoped the July 25 ballot would be a step towards greater acceptance after 13 transgender candidates filed papers to run in the election and the Election Commission hired transgender observers for the first time.
While Pakistan is deeply conservative and homosexuality is illegal, the country has approved laws giving transgender people better rights than in many other nations including issuing its first passport with a transgender category last year.
However transgender turnout remained low at Wednesday’s poll and observers faced difficult work environments which the All Pakistan Transgender Election Network blamed on the Election Commission’s “failure to understand the unique obstacles”.
The Election Commission of Pakistan did not respond to a request for comment.
Transgender observer Farzana Riaz said she and about 25 other colleagues hired to make sure polling station staff treated disabled and women voters with care were not allowed inside polling stations despite having official identification.
“We, as observers, were given identity cards by the election commission, but we were still not allowed inside,” Riaz told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Riaz said no transgender people were allowed to vote in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa - one of Pakistan’s four provinces where there was a spate of transgender attacks in 2016 - because their identity cards did not match the gender they presented as.
“But we do not wish to just sit back. We want to participate in the electoral process. This is our democratic right,” said Riaz after the election was won by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), or Pakistan Movement for Justice.
Transgender candidates lose faith in ECP
ISLAMABAD: The transgender community contested the general elections 2018 for the first time in the history of Pakistan.
Although the transgender community was accepted and appreciated by the general public it faced harsh attitude, threats from their political opponents and lack of security from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The transgender voters who went to cast their votes on the polling stations faced immense issues and complained about the lack of facilities and support from the ECP.
All Pakistan Transgender Election Network (APTEN) expressed serious reservations and dissatisfaction over the ECP in failing to address the concerns and needs of transgender voters during the general elections 2018.
“The ECP has failed to understand the unique obstacles faced by the transgender voters, which has combined aspects of legal, physical and transportation and informational barriers, among others,” said the statement issued by APTEN.
APTEN believes that the transgender voter turnout remained very low due to these obstacles, according to NADRA records.
APTEN said that there are only 1,882 registered transgender voters which include 11 in Islamabad, 11 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), 127 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), 80 in Balochistan, 338 in Sindh and 1,315 in Punjab. It stated that the majority of these votes were registered in their respective villages or hometowns.
“Majority of them could not travel to their respective villages primarily because of the security issues and some had issues with their CNICs, which left them deprived of their right to vote,” they said.