Activists and members of the transgender community on Monday urged the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to review the new Transgender (Protection of Rights) Bill 2016 thoroughly before passing it.
Pointing that there were numerous lacunas and drawbacks in the Bill, Rajesh Umadevi of Sangama, an NGO, said that it offered no clear direction on how the different departments would co-ordinate to implement its provisions and how the community will access those welfare measures.
“If we do not remove the numerous lacunas, loopholes, drawbacks and disadvantages it could lead to miscarriage of justice rather than setting right the decades and centuries of social injustice and discrimination,’ he said at an interaction with the media here.
Nish Gulur, an activist, noted that the definition of the transgender was not at par with a Supreme Court order and that the Bill in its present form does not recognise the self identification process.
While Christy Raj, a trans man, alleged that the new bill is silent on the word abuse, Saampurna Behura from Reachlaw and Venkatesh, an advocate, lamented that violence against the transgender by the family members and police has not been incorporated in it.