Despite the existence of a significant number of Khawaja Siras in Sindh, only around 3,000 of them are registered to vote, leading to a lack of consensus among Khawaja Siras, a representative of transgender persons said .Shehzadi Rai, who is also part of the Gender Interactive Alliance, held a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday to highlight the denial of voting rights to Khawaja Siras, whom she claimed the government and the Election Commission of Pakistan have overlooked.Transgender persons demanded being registered to vote. “Our primary concern is that the election commission, despite providing voter registration numbers, has not reached an agreement with Khawaja Sira leaders,” said Shehzadi.
She insisted on revisiting the electoral registration process for Khawaja Siras, “but this suggestion has been disregarded, resulting in the exclusion of approximately 1,000 individuals from the voting registry”.
She also demanded implementing the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018. She said that following the Federal Shariat Court’s decision against the piece of legislation, the process of issuing identity cards to Khawaja Siras has been halted, thus depriving them of their identity.She pointed out that the National Database & Registration Authority has ignored the letters issued by the Sindh Human Rights Commission and the National Human Rights Commission urging the resumption of the identity card process.
