“People refuse to see us as anything more than just a beggar. During election campaigns, when volunteers from our community were distributing brochures, they faced derision. People told them to go away and beg somewhere else,” said Nayyab Ali, a transgender person who is one of the candidates contesting from Islamabad’s NA-46 and NA-47 constituencies.

She added that people’s reaction was no different when they learned that the volunteers were carrying out an election campaign.

Hailing from Okara, this wasn’t a novel reality for the independent candidate.

Her life as a transgender person has been turbulent. She was forced to leave home at the age of 13 and moved in with her grandmother. She was subjected to physical and sexual abuse and later attacked with acid by a man with whom she was in a relationship.

However, adversities failed to deter Ms Ali as she is convinced that in order to claim rights, “one needs to be politically strong”.

With this conviction, she entered politics to be “empowered” and claim her rightful space.

However, she has her work cut out as she is taking on two political bigwigs; PPP’s Raja Imran Ashraf and PML-N’s Anjum Aqeel Khan in the two constituencies.

She chose to compete from Islamabad because of “her familiarity with the place and people”.

While she might lack the weight of a big political force behind her, the list of her achievements and public service is long.

She received her undergraduate degrees in Botany at the University of Punjab and later did her master’s in International Relations from Preston University, Islamabad.

She was part of the special committee responsible for reviewing the Pakistan Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018. The bill provided legal recognition to transgender persons and prohibited discrimination and harassment.

Ms Ali established the first school for the transgender community in her hometown and started a venture called ‘Khawaja Sira Community’ to provide basic education, vocational training, life skills education and driving classes to transgender persons.

She also served as the national coordinator of the All Pakistan Transgender Election Network (Apten).

In recognition of her services, she received the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights in 2020. The biennial German award is presented to individuals who have committed themselves to human rights. She has also been declared a Gender Equality Advocate in Pakistan by the United Nations Development Programme.

Ms Ali has already chalked out her priorities in case she wins the election. Her foremost goal is to “enhance the inclusion of the transgender community in politics and the legislation process”.

“As a parliamentarian, I think your biggest responsibility is law-making. The existing laws about harassment and injustice against marginalised groups don’t have a concept of punishment. It is written that one is not supposed to discriminate against transgender people, but there is no punishment for it,” she said, adding that her primary goal is to amend existing laws.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2024