Transgender to assist Narowal police on polling day

NAROWAL: The general election 2018 has created various opportunities in Pakistan for the mainstreaming of transgender community; Narowal police came up with another commendable move to employ transgender for the election day duty.

The decision of lending a hand from transgender on July 25 was taken by the police in the wake of shortage of female police officers.

Narowal district police has only 23 female officers, whereas 117 female police officers are fixed for the election day duty. In order to meet the required count, several police stations in Narowal are interviewing transgender to fill the gap.

The total number of registered transgender in Narowal is 95.

“We will fulfill our duty wholeheartedly, if employed for the role on the election day,” a member of transgender community vowed.

Few days earlier,the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), an independent think-tank, appointed around 25 transgender persons to work for the organization as election observers.

According to the organization, the job of the transgender persons, as election observers, is to observe and note down any violation of rights or act of discrimination against the vulnerable sections of the society at polling stations in the upcoming general elections on July 25.

Any direct violations and observations would immediately be conveyed to presiding officers while survey forms would be filled by the electoral observers to report incidents of political and electoral violence. The form will then be submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) at the end of the day.