ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights has decided to amend the 2018 law to change ‘transgender’ to ‘khunsa’.
For this purpose, the committee discussed amendments to the ‘Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018’.
Senator Walid Iqbal, who belongs to PTI chaired the meeting at Parliament House on Monday.
The committee unanimously decided to change the word ‘transgender’ with ‘khunsa (intersex)’. The committee defined ‘khunsa’ as an individual who has a mixture of male and female genital features or congenital ambiguities. Such person could be classified as ‘khunsa’ male, ‘khunsa’ female and ‘khunsa muskhil’.
The committee also decided to set up a medical board with six experts at the district level. The board will have a male general surgeon of the professor’s rank, a female gynecologist, a plastic surgeon, an endocrinologist or genetist, a urologist and a psychologist.
The committee decided that a khunsa person will have to get himself/herself registered with Nadra by showing the certification of the medical board.
Senators Dr Muhammad Humayun Mohmand, Fawzia Arshad, Mushtaq Ahmed, Syed Muhammad Sabir Shah, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, Molvi Faiz Muhammad, Attaur Rehman, and Seemee Ezdi attended the meeting.
Also, Human Rights Ministry Secretary Ali Raza Bhutta and senior officials of the ministry participated in the meeting.
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