PESHAWAR: The Pakistan’s Transgender Endowment Fund Bill 2022 has been presented in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

According to the details, a bill for setting up an endowment fund for the welfare of transgender persons in the province was tabled by KP Minister for the Social Welfare department during the ongoing provincial Assembly session which was chaired by Speaker Mushtaq Ghani here.

KP government took the lead in fulfilling the needs of the transgender community presented in this new law and became the first provincial government in Pakistan. Section 3 of the proposed law set up a transgender persons welfare endowment fund with an initial capital of Rs 100 million.

Under Section 4, the fund will be utilised for the welfare activities of transgender persons to bring them into the mainstream. Besides, it will also provide financial assistance and small-scale interest-free loans to transgender persons for small entrepreneurship and business development.

In addition, the other uses of the fund are the training of government officials for sensitisation to the transgender person issues, creating awareness of the welfare and acceptance of the transgender persons in the society through print, electronic and social media, workshops and seminars, carrying out research, and proposing a mechanism for the welfare of transgender persons.

Also, a management committee will be formed for action on the bill’s objectives. It will be headed by the director of the Social Welfare department and will receive applications through the district officer (social welfare) from the transgender persons for financial assistance. Besides, it will also scrutinize those applications to grant financial assistance to transgender persons.

Qamar Naseem, a transgender rights activist and Program Manager of Blue Veins (organization leading the transgender rights policy campaign), said the time has come to look beyond the binary gender construct of “male” and “female”. KP will soon introduce the provincial Transgender Protection Bill 2022, he added.

Nayyab Ali, internationally renowned transgender rights expert and laureate of the Franco-German Prize for Human rights and rule Law expressed her views after witnessing the proceeding of the KP Assembly.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022