PESHAWAR: Transgender persons of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday staged a sit-in against the recent brutal killings of their community members here and demanded protection by the government.

“People are slaughtering transgender persons like chickens - in fact in worse ways,” Aarzu, a transgender rights’ activist, said during the protest at the Peshawar Press Club.

Shouting slogans against the provincial government and police for ‘failing to protect’ them, the transgender persons had showed up there on the call of the TransAction Alliance, which works for their rights, to protest brutal killings of and surge in violent attacks against their community members in the province.

The protesters went frantic wailing over the recent killing of Nazo, a transgender person in Peshawar, who was slaughtered before the body was mutilated by killers.

Warn they’ll leave KP if their life not protected

The killers were arrested at the crime scene when the police were alerted by the locals.

The protesters however claimed that in most such cases, killers weren’t arrested, cases were not properly probed to arrest culprits, or strong cases weren’t made against them.

“This year alone, 62 transgender persons were killed. All were killed brutally. We have photos of each one killed,” said Aarzo, the general secretary of Trans Action Alliance.

She said not only was there a hate against transgender persons in society, it also became more dangerous when it escalated from ridiculing them in public like cutting their hair or beating them up to brutally killing them.

Aaarzo said in just a month, a transgender person was shot at, while another was tortured and then came the horrific incident of slaughtering and chopping of body into pieces. In Mansehra, a transgender person’s nose was cut and leg was broken. The local administrations of Swat and Bannu had asked transgender persons to get out of the districts. Where we all should go,” complained Aarzo.

“Even when people slaughter a chicken, they might recite the holy verses but transgender persons are killed in the worst way possible,” said transgender person Duwa Khushbo.

“People hate us so much. It is so hard to live with it,” said Duwa helplessly.

Often transgender persons take up dancing as profession but a transgender person covering face said she was forced to do it as no one allowed her and others to take up any decent job.

“I am born the way I am. It is not my fault. I tried to sell vegetables once but was ridiculed and even my hair were cut in Bannu once when I resisted attackers,” said Wafa, a transgender person, who had moved from Balochistan’s Loralai area to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and moved from one district to other in the hope of finding peace and security.

Farzana Jan, who led the protest, said the transgender persons were out in the sun to protest the brutal killing of community members and demanded a special law for the protection of their life and economic and social welfare. She said if the killing of transgender persons continued, they would be forced to leave the province.

“We also want to be treated with dignity in the ‘Naya Pakistan’ and the new PTI government in the centre should ensure it’s different than its predecessors by enacting special laws and protecting transgender persons,” she said.

Farzana Jan said transgender persons were so insecure that if they stayed in the province, they feared they all would be killed one by one.

She asked newly-elected Prime Minister Imran Khan to provide her community members with provision and dignified life.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2018