Police training

 

Transgender Youth Capacity Building

 

·         Capacity building training of the youth council member in facilitation skills

·         Verbal and Non-verbal awareness messages for the female transgender population and the global population

·         Police trainings on the rights of transgender in Abbottabad and Haripur

·         Online Covid-19 awareness campaign

 

Transgender Youth Capacity Building

 

Capacity building training of the youth council member in facilitation skills

 

 

In the month of March, 2021, We conducted two different trainings with the youth council members to build their capacity. The first training was to create facilitation skill so that the youth council members can conduct the police training in the city of Abbottabad and Haripur that falls under the province of Khyber PakhtunKhwa (KPK), Pakistan. The second training was develop general awareness message through videos and spread them through social media platform.

 

Police training in Abbottabad

 

On April 6^th, 2021, We conducted a training with the police of Abbottabad city, Pakistan on the rights of transgender and Transgender Protection Act 2018. In this training a total of 15 police officer participated in which 10 were male and 5 were female participants. Initially the participants were very reluctant and were not expressing their thoughts regarding the transgender but as the workshop continues, it broke the barriers of the participants through the content and then the participants started discussing about the transgender. Initially the participants had very conservative thinking about transgender community but after attending the workshop the thinking was changed which is reflecting in the below graphs:

 

 

 

Police Training in Haripur

 

On April 7^th, 2021, We conducted the second police training in Haripur. This training was also to sensitize the police and orient them regarding the rights of transgenders and The transgender Protection Act 2018. A total of 14 participants attended the workshop out of which 11 were male and 3 were female. The uniqueness of the workshop was that the transgender community was also invited by the police to attend the workshop and to give them a message that the police of Haripur is transgender friendly police and they want to mainstream the community.

 

 

Online Covid-19 Awareness Campaign

 

Introduction:

As the number of Covid-19 patients was increasing rapidly in the country.

Human Right organization immediately took an action against the issue and launched its online

Covid-19 awareness campaign by using the social media platform. This campaign will remained for one whole week. The campaign started on Monday May 10, 2021 and ended on May 16, 2021. The three days of Eid were also included purposely to reach out to large numbers of individuals who be contacted for the Eid greetings.

 

Objective:

 

The objective of the campaign was to create awareness in society regarding the safety measure against Covid-19 and to minimize the spread of the virus. In addition to this, we want to see a positive change in the behaviour of the society regarding Covid-19 as the large number of peoples are not believing in the existence of the Corona Virus.

 

Methodology:

 

We used its Whatsapp groups for the dissemination of the awareness messages. The core staff of  Youth Council Members, beneficiaries and the stakeholders were reached out through WhatsApp. The group admin circulated the awareness pictures to all members of the group/s on daily basis and the members of the group/s use that picture as the Display Picture (DP) for their social media accounts

 

Outcome:

 

Through this campaign, we reached out to approximately (Number of Individuals reached) peoples and disseminated the awareness messages. Lots of people appreciated the effort of us in a very positive manner. Transgender community liked the online campaign of us and said that they will follow the SOPs that the Government of Pakistan has made regarding Covid-19. The successful experience of online campaign boosted the confidence of us and motivated it to launch more productive online campaigns for its beneficiaries in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Partnership Development

 

From the very onset of this grant period, unfortunately the entire world was already facing the challenge of COVID-19. Very limited human interactions, partial or total lockdowns in addition to nervousness within the government institutions made it almost impossible for us to initiate a dialogue and sensitize the secretariat of Federal Ombudsman (it was planned for this year to develop a transgender friendly environment at Federal Ombudsman so that the transgender population could easily access the above forum). Although, currently the commissioner for transgender rights seats herself as Federal Ombudsman but unfortunately, beyond political rhetoric, there is very little interaction with the transgender populations and almost close to none complaint filed at the secretariat by any transgender. 

 

However, the order issued by the Provincial Ombudsman in favour of us and transgender community was remarkable moment to cherish. This is one of the opportunities to build future partnership with the government departments such as police, civil defence and other law implementing bodies. Though, it was verbally communicated to us at Ombudsman during the hearing that we should conduct further trainings of the law implementing bodies on the Transgender Protection Act 2018 to ensure harmony and fill the gaps between the two stakeholders however, surprisingly, it was not made part of the written order.

 

Challenges/lessons learned

 

Describe any problems or challenges in implementing your program objectives. These could be internal as well as external pertaining to your situation (laws/culture/crackdowns etc.), as well as any unforeseen obstacles that emerged and seriously impeded your work.

 

External challenges:

 

1.       The gradual increase of the COVID-19 virus also known as the second strain of COVID-19 in Pakistan creating an unsafe situation for the organization staff and project target participants to move/travel and/or conduct on-site activities.

2.       The community indifferent behaviour towards practicing of COVID-19 SOPs jeopardizes their own safety as well as the project staff reaching out to them in emergency

3.       The Ehsas Program introduce by the Prime Minister to provide financial assistance to under-served communities and people living below poverty line did have a quota for  transgender population but for that only those transgenders qualified who had the CNIC of a transgender. In addition to this, due to closure of business and limited mobility of larger populations; the transgender population could not pursue one of its most common sources of earning i.e. beggary. The COVID-19 also limited the functions which again deeply affected the economic stability of transgender house-holds. Thus, resources were limited and the community at time did have the money to interact with each other over the phone, leave alone getting in touch with the outreach teams.

4.       Community incapacity to effectively use the online mediums for the purposes of engagement with team/s and other relevant platforms to raise their voices

5.       Lack of awareness among the community regarding COVID-19 leading to the behavioural state where their assumptions puts them in unsafe daily interactions 

6.       Frequent Tele-signals jam during political instability causing delays in activities-this happened during Molana Khadim Rizvi’s arrival to Islamabad with a procession. However, the activity was conducted in Murree that is relatively a safer space.

 

Internal challenges:

 

There were no significant internal challenges that caused delays in work flow.

 

Proposed activities for next quarter

 

For each of the program objective, please describe the planned activities. If you think that some activities may not be completed within the proposed timeline because of the challenges then please describe how you will address/adapt the project.

 

1.      Printing of materials e.g. masks, T-shirts etc. We invited the quotations from different businesses who print such materials. For right now, it still has not been able to find somebody who fits into the allocated budget. However, that does not mean that the said products will not be produced, it may just take a little more time to finalize in affordable deal.

2.      Future planning of projects and collaborations. This is currently happening. Our entire team is in Lahore with the hope to find some connections within the Punjab government to further its outreach in the entire Multan district and onwards in Southern Punjab.

3.      Assessment and Evaluation of the YC members. Originally this was planned through an extensive plan of action, which included a focused group discussion with the beneficiaries of the sessions conducted by different YC members in two and a half years. In addition to this, the multiplication of an outreach of the messages was to be measured through in-depth interviews in the community. Also questionnaire was developed to assess the learning graph of each YC member. However, due to the second surge of COVID-19, most of the assessment had to be trimmed down. The only few things that are selected where minimal human contact will happen are the one-on-one interviews of the YC members and random one or two interviews of the beneficiaries from each neighbourhood that is been touched upon by the YC members in their outreach. This will be done in a safe hotel environment with strict COVID-19 SOPs in place.

Additional information

 

This is the most recent case of discrimination against the transgender population. The incident happened in one of the most visited tourist-resort town, Murree, Pakistan. These transgenders were participating in a capacity-building workshop hosted by us in Murree in October 2020. Some of them during a stroll in the evening were stopped by the personnel from the local law regulating body and were asked if they had registered themselves with the Civil Defense office in Murree. This permission was for the transgender population to enter and stay in Murree. Upon the negative response from female transgenders, the Civil Defense official insisted that the female transgender should immediately come to the Civil Defense office and give their names and national identity card numbers along with their cell phones numbers and photographs.

Team who was close by saw the female transgender being surrounded by a group of people and went over to check the reason. Once they reached the group and discovered the situation they tried to intervene.  They assured the civil defense personnel that they provide all needed guarantees regarding the transgenders' presence in Murree, however would not let the official take any photographs of the participants of the workshop. When the team went back to the workshop location, they shared the situation.

The next morning, Mr. Kashif along with one of the board members and a couple of workshop participants went back to the Civil Defense office to express his concerns and complaint about the discriminatory treatment of transgenders. The official informed Mr. Kashif that they took this action upon the order of the Assistant Commissioner (AC) of Murree. According to the official, the AC had issued the order because the trader group and the resident of Murree had complained that the presence of the female transgender population leads to nuisance- spreading of immorality as well as misleading the youth.

On Mr. Kashif insistence, the civil Defense officer handed back the document to him that had the details of the participants. Mr. Kashif reminded that the action taken by the Civil Defense on October 9^th, 2020 is discrimination and injustice under the Transgender Protection Act 2018 and that we will raise the issue and express its concerns at the appropriate forum.

On November 15, 2020, We filed the complaint against the Assistant Commissioner and Civil Defense department of Murree at the Provincial Ombudsman. In the complaint, he reported the incident and requested that the Constitution of Pakistan as well as the Transgender Protection Act 2018 be used as the guiding principles for ending discrimination against transgender populations.

Finally, on December 8^th, 2020, a detailed order was issued by the Provincial Ombudsman office. The order clearly described that the transgender population holds the right to access public places and their mobility is protected under Section 4(E & F). Therefore, nobody has a right to stop them from accessing public places or imposing any conditions on their free movement. The Provincial Ombudsman, further ordered the Assistant commissioner of Murree, to instruct the Civil Defense officers to safeguard the rights of the transgender population, and, provide them protection wherever and whenever needed.

We work is for the larger female transgender populations of the country and the effort is always to find a sustainable and long-term solution to any or all problems that female transgender populations may face. We thought that this was a moment that is captured in the history of the evolution of the Transgender Protection Act 2018 and should be shared with all partners and friends.

Your partnership in part takes the moment and the cause to the next step. Kindly share it with all your other partners in the country so that they have a reference point in case if they face any such harassment or injustice