(MENAFN - Tribal News Network) PESHAWAR, 05 June: Members of transgender community on Monday rejected the statistics presented by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Social Welfare Department regarding the number of transgender people in the province and announced to start protest movement after Eid.
Addressing a news conference in Peshawar press club here on Monday, Khwaja Sara Society (KSS) president Laila said as per the statistics provided by the Social Welfare department, there are only 135 transgender people in Peshawar while the number of the transgender community members in the whole province is not more than 1000.
'The Social Welfare department has failed to conduct the survey appropriately. The statistics of the government are nothing more than a joke. There are more than 2000 transgender people living in Faqirabad, Dilzak road and Gulabahr areas,' Laila said.
She alleged that the Social Welfare department did not utilize a single rupee on the welfare of the transgender community.
'The provincial government had earmarked Rs200 million for the welfare of transgendered community of the province which the department failed to utilize efficiently,' she added.
She further said that the government did not allocate 2% quota in government jobs for the members of the transgender community, which is also a violation of the Supreme Court judgment.
A renowned Guru and a transgender activist Arshady while speaking on the occasion said that the people who conducted the survey of mapping transgender people were not properly trained and that was why they could not conducted the survey efficiently.
Zaiba, a transgender activist said that this was not the first time that the Social Welfare department has come up with irresponsible and funny statement. 'In May, 2012, the Social Welfare Department claimed that there are only 350 transgender people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,' she said while citing a news article from Pakistan Today published in 2012.
Talking to TNN, Laila said that they had not been asking for charity or alms, rather they were demanding their rights. 'If our rights as enshrined in the Constitution are not provided to us, we will launch protest movment after Eid.
She further said that the transgender community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would not tolerate any cuts in the allocated budget, saying, 'we will resist it on roads if the department tried to put any cuts on our funds."
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