Transgender Community Demands CNICs
The Sindh Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has called on the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) to issue Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs) to transgender people without discrimination.
In a statement released on Monday, the SHRC said that transgender people in Pakistan are already marginalized, and denying them CNICs would make their problems even worse.
The statement was issued in response to a complaint filed by Sana Khan, a transgender person from Hyderabad, who said that NADRA had refused to issue them a CNIC.
“Ceasing the provision of CNIC cards to transgender persons violates various fundamental rights granted to citizens in the Constitution of Pakistan,”
The SHRC said that NADRA had issued a notification on June 13, 2023, halting CNICs for transgender people. However, this notification was withdrawn on September 25, 2023. However, the NADRA office in Hyderabad claimed that their central system had not yet been updated.
The commission said that NADRA’s decision to halt CNICs for transgender people was based on a judgment passed on May 19, 2023, by the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) in the case of Hammad Hussain versus the Federation of Pakistan and others. In this case, the FSC ordered the government to suspend certain provisions of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act.
The SHRC has called on NADRA to issue CNICs to transgender people without discrimination and to respect their fundamental rights.