Khawaja Sira Society
In 2009, the Pakistan Supreme Court officially recognized hijras as a Third gender, allowing their third gender certification on their national ID and ability to vote in the election. However, this “monumental progress” is still far from achieving equality in the larger context. Trans citizens are still having difficulty to access education and employment in both private and public sectors. They even struggle to practice their own religion. Muslim are ought to perform a Hajj – a pilgrimage to their holy place of Mecca. However, to many muslim hijras in Pakistan, Mecca remains inaccessible due to their third gender ID not being recognised in Saudi Arabia.
Hijras in Pakistan were not always treated this poorly. There is a popular belief that hijras are deemed to have been direct cultural descendants of the court eunuchs of the Mughal era. It is said that during the Mughal era, parents wished for transgender children to be born into their families as they would be able to serve the women of the royal family since men were not allowed to serve women of the era and the only way to ensure their protection and well-being were to have transgender staff. Hence, the urdu word ‘Khawaja Sira’ was primarily a term for a profession and not a gender.
The organisation also runs a literacy programme to reduce illiteracy among the hijras, in a hope to make them more educated and able to find adequate work to support themselves and their families. Anecdotal studies suggest that a high number trans people are banned from pursuing their education causing high illiteracy among hijras. For many transgender women in Pakistan, due to discrimination and social exclusion, sex work has been the only available career to choose from. In order to bring about change in this scenario, KSS conducted several dialogues with the Pakistani government to demand a minimum job quota in the public for trans individuals. In a recent landmark achievement fueled by KSS, the Supreme Court declared an allotment of a 2% quota of teaching jobs for trans teachers.
KSS recently led a protest that made headlines against the social welfare department demanding for the protection of human rights. The protest sparked from the Social Welfare Council of Punjab’s ruling to detain all the homeless transgender people who lived and begged on the streets of Punjab. Their reasoning behind this ruling was their opinion that these homeless trans people were fake – which is far from the truth.
Despite the country being predominantly Islamic, KSS values diversity and boasts of a unique religious mixture of the trans Pakistani community as members. KSS believes that all hijras are equal regardless of their religion. The organisation promotes the celebration of all important religious holidays such as Eid, Christmas and even Hindu celebrated Navratri and Diwali by organising fun-filled activities that all members can take part in.
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