Third party concerns: Welfare dept working to help eunuchs

Eunuchs facing problems with housing, education and harassment.

SIALKOT:

The Social Welfare Department organised a day-long seminar on the topic of finding an amicable solution to all the problems being confronted by the eunuchs in the district on Friday.

A large number of eunuchs, representatives of different NGOs and senior gender experts attended the seminar, which was presided over by social welfare district officer (DO) Muhammad Nawaz Khan.

The participants listened sympathetically to the eunuchs describe the problems they were facing with regards to education, health and even accommodation. The social welfare department has pledged to extend the maximum effort to improving the status of eunuchs in the society. “This community has been marginalised from the beginning through no fault of its own. This is something that needs to be rectified and the transgender community needs to be included in mainstream society,” Khan said.

Addressing the seminar, Guru Reema told the participants that the eunuchs’ community is still shunned. “We are relegated to certain areas and only certain professions. Our children are not in school and it is nearly impossible for us to find housing except in certain areas,” he said.

Reema also urged the government to focus on housing for eunuchs. “I know of several members of the community who have not been offered any flat or residence for rent for the past six months. They have the money to pay rent but no one is willing to let out a place and they are on the street.

The government needs to help us,” he said, adding that even transgenders who wished to earn a respectable living were prevented from doing so because of societal stigmas.

She said that sexual harassment was something transgenders faced all the time. “People take sexual harassment complaints seriously when they come from women but not when we complain to the police. They think we invite such behavior,” he said.

“We are people and we deserve to be treated like human beings with all the basic facilities every one else has access too,” Reema said. He hailed the survey for the registration of eunuchs in the country on the orders of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary and said that other measures needed to be taken to fully integrate eunuchs into society.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2012.