LAHORE – In compliance with the orders of the Supreme Court, as many as 2,163 transgender persons have so far been issued computerized national identity cards (CNICs) in Punjab while more 789 cases are being processed.
According to a handout issued here on Monday, a meeting of Provincial Monitoring Committee chaired by Chief Secretary Punjab Akbar Durrani was held to review progress on the issuance of CNICs to transgender people.
The Chief Secretary said that issuance of CNICs was a first step towards bringing the transgender persons in
mainstream, a lot of work has yet to be done.
He directed the Secretary Social Welfare to set up an endowment fund besides seeking proposals from other
departments for the welfare of eunuchs such as health cards, vocational training, and employment opportunities.
The official said that in the light of Supreme Court’s order a monitoring committee at provincial level while implementation committees in districts were fully functional.
He ordered that an awareness and community mobilization campaign be launched to speed up the process of registration of eunuchs for bringing them into the mainstream.
The chief secretary also distributed CNICs among the transgender persons. The secretary social welfare briefed the meeting about the process of issuance of CNICs and measures being taken for the welfare of eunuchs.
He said that facilitation centres in districts were providing the facility of issuance of CNICs to transgender persons under one window operation. He said that the Social Welfare Department had approved a community centre for transgender persons in the Annual Development Programme.
The meeting was attended by Secretary Primary Health, Secretary Women Development, Akhuwat Chairman Dr Amjad Saqib, officers concerned and representatives of transgender persons.
