KARACHI:
The National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) has decided to provide job opportunities to eunuchs at its regional offices.
The decision was taken in a meeting headed by Chairman NADRA Ali Arshad Hakeem at the authority’s headquarters here on Wednesday.
Earlier, NADRA had decided to issue Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) to eunuchs in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had directed authorities to include the names of transgenders in the voters’ list while issuing CNICs to them.
According to an official statement, “The authority will initially appoint seven eunuchs at the provincial level to facilitate the members of their gender specific community in the processing of the CNICs.”
The statement continued to say that the appointment of eunuchs on the vacancies will be made on merit through proper screening of the candidates, following the announcement of jobs in leading newspapers. The appointees will be designated as NADRA officials on the post of data entry operators in NADRA offices in all provinces and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
The official statement further said that the authority will start the issuance of the CNICs from January 2011. Representatives of eunuchs’ rights associations, including Almas Bobby and Shazia Choudhary also participated in the discussions on the matters of registration and related issues of recognition, identification and the employment opportunities given to eunuchs. Officials of NADRA, ministry of law, ministry of social welfare, Islamic ideology council, gender specialists, and academicians mutually agreed to include the word ‘Mukhannas’ as the third category for gender in the CNIC.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 16th, 2010.
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