Members of the transgender community in the city have petitioned District Collector and District Transgender Justice Board Chairman K. Mohammed Y. Safirulla demanding disciplinary action against three senior and middle-level police officers in the city who, they claimed, are acting in violation of the basic human rights of transgender people.
The petition, signed by 57 transgender people, lists out the series of police actions allegedly violative of human rights against the community from July, 2016 till date.
Rights declaration meet
The group is also planning to hold a rights declaration convention on January 28 in Ernakulam to pressure the government to implement the Transgender Policy, which was announced by the State in 2015.
“Three years hence, we are discriminated against everywhere, as we don’t even have an identity card. Shunted out from families, most of us live on the streets and often are forced to take to sex work when left without a choice for livelihood. We do want to live in a house, however small, but the police have worked in collusion with the residents’ associations and lodges to deny us a decent place of dwelling,” they told the media, adding that the shelter home provided by the administration was worse than a prison.
Faisal Faisu, a transwoman who had worked in the housekeeping section of Kochi Metro, said she had been biased against in office. “The schedule there was inhuman. They wouldn’t even let me go to toilet or go out for lunch. For regular office-goers, it’s not an issue, as they bring parcelled meals from home. For us homeless people, the only way out was to go without food,” Faisu said.
The community members alleged a ‘transgender witch-hunt’ being carried out by the city police and warned of stringent agitation to earn their right to live.
