Transgender Afghan Refugees in Pakistan: A Safe Haven For Now?
This is the latest in a series of Dispatches from Afghanistan, a new series by LevantX , which explores life in the recently created Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after the return of the Taliban.
Photographs and writing by Oliver Marsden. Additional reporting Tariq Ullah.
The humid night air hangs heavy over the Afghan Colony neighbourhood of Peshawar, Pakistan. Dust is kicked up by passing tuk-tuks, creating a pink haze as the coloured neon lights of local food stalls permeate through it. Across the street from one such restaurant, over a canal that runs black as it cuts through the polluted city and up a set of broken metal stairs sits the transgender community centre.
Sitting in one of the dimly lit back rooms while carefully applying makeup is nineteen-year-old Mina from Nangarha in Afghanistan. She is readying herself for an evening of dancing.
“I’m not interested in University, just dancing,” Mina says as she picks up her blue and gold dress before patting it down admiringly. “I’m happy with my identity and happy to call myself transgender.”
For transgender women in Pakistan, dancing at weddings and parties to entertain the guests is a lucrative business. It is considered un-Islamic for women to dance in front of men and so transgender women like Mina bring a flurry of excitement to the evening’s celebrations. Women like Mina are known as Hijras in Pakistan – a term used to denote both transgender women and cross dressers – and are considered to be blessed, as many Pakistanis believe they are direct cultural descendants of the court eunuchs of the pre-colonial Mughal era.
In 2010, the supreme court of Pakistan fully recognised the transgender community and started issuing them passports recognising them as such in 2017. An exciting step for a country with traditional Islamic values.
However, this legal recognition has not stopped the women’s home in Peshawar being attacked and the women are often subjected to verbal abuse, having their heads shaved and gang rape. In fact, dancing can be so lucrative that many of the women are kidnapped for ransom or extorted for their earnings. The district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, of which Peshawar is the capital, is more traditional than the rest of Pakistan and identifies strongly with its neighbour, Afghanistan. For Mina and the rest of the transgender women in the Afghan colony it’s values can be dangerous.
“There aren’t equal rights for women here, so how will there ever really be equal rights for trans women.”
Despite these threats, Mina believes she is safer in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. With the swift take-over of the country by the Taliban, this seems truer now more than ever.
“My future is bright in Pakistan as I live with other transgender people. I am happy here.”
The building in the Afghan Colony is less of a working community centre and more of a run-down safe haven for the twenty to thirty transgender women divided amongst the nine rooms. The walls of Mina’s room are painted pink and adorned with pictures of transgender women, or “sisters” as Mina affectionately calls them. Sitting on a thin mattress on the floor, she explains how at the age of twelve she left Afghanistan and travelled to Pakistan. She crossed the land border at Chaman in southern Pakistan and then travelled north to Peshawar as it has connections and similarities with Afghanistan.
Mina’s family wanted her to return to Afghanistan. They sent her cousins to Pakistan to kidnap her and bring her home. They succeeded but Mina managed to escape and fled back to Pakistan. Does she miss her family?
“My parents have forgotten me, so why should I remember them.”
Mina has no desire to return to Afghanistan. Even under the previous Afghan government it wasn’t safe to be a transgender woman. Gay sex was illegal and members of the LGBTQI+ community were denied access to certain health services and even fired from their jobs. The transgender community was very small and very hidden. Under the current Taliban government, it has all but disappeared. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has been replaced by the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, a department notorious for enforcing strict sharia laws, and the Taliban are reportedly going door to door looking for gay and transgender men and women.
“I knew only one trans sister. We were friends. She’s still in Afghanistan. Now we have no contact. All contact has finished.”
In Afghanistan, honour killings and beatings are common. Many transwomen are now growing beards and marrying women in a bid to hide their identity. There are reports that the Taliban are tricking gay and transgender men and women into meeting them by contacting them on social media and promising to help them flee the country. This has caused the LGBTQI+ community to switch their phones and locations regularly.
Another resident of the house in Peshawar has heard these rumours too. Namkeen, a transgender rights activist from Peshawar, leans forward to tell the room in hushed tones that five transgender Afghan refugees have recently crossed the Chaman border in the south. They are making their way north to Peshawar but are too frightened to talk to the press, such is their very real fear of death.
Namkeen works for the International Rescue Committee as gender equality and social inclusion officer in Pakistan. She tells LevantX even in the relative safety of Pakistan, there are still dangers for transgender Afghan Refugees.
“They are here illegally and have no status,” she says. “They can be picked up by the security services anytime.”
Mina is facing the same issues despite being in Pakistan for seven years.
“I have no Pakistan legal documents. I have no rights to move or to activate a SIM card.”
Namkeen is currently trying to help Mina obtain her Afghan Citizenship Card for Afghan refugees. Once she has this, she will be able to move about freely and get her own phone.
Namkeen is eager to stress that dancing alone isn’t enough to support the women. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, many wedding venues and reception halls were forced to shut their doors. Without the income from dancing many of the transgender women turned to prostitution to help make ends meet. Mina herself has been fallen victim to the pandemic in this way.
“I do 60% dancing and 40% prostitution,” she tells LevantX.
In an attempt to help the women off the streets, the IRC is training them in beauty and jewellery making courses, as well as supporting 450 of them with health and livelihood projects.
Blue Veins and Da Hawwa Lur are two other charities working on the ground in Peshawar helping to empower and educate women and the transgender community. The charities help women with a range of issues including gender-based violence, online cyber harassment, and psychological and legal support.
However, while there is support for the transgender community in Pakistan, the fate of the LGBTQI+ community in Afghanistan is being largely ignored. A 2017 US State department report on human rights concluded that members of the LGBTQI+ community continued to face discrimination, assault, rape, and arrest by security forces and society at large. Groups devoted to protecting the freedoms of LGBTQI+ people remained underground because they could legally register with the government. This was during the previous governments time in power, and nothing has changed in the years leading up to the recent Taliban takeover. The fate of the community now is certain death if discovered. In recent interview with German newspaper Bild, Taliban judge Gul Rahim warned of the “biggest” punishments for homosexuals.
“For homosexuals, there can only be two punishments: either stoning, or he must stand behind a wall that will fall down on him. The wall must be 2.5 to 3 metres high.”
Rainbow Road is an international charity that helps LGBTQI+ individuals find safety through emergency relocation to foreign countries and other forms of assistance. In the face of a swiftly deteriorating human rights situation and civil society disengagement in Afghanistan, they have called on international governments to come forward and support LGBTQI+ Afghan Refugees. Apart from Canada, this request has been met with a lukewarm response while governments wait to see what the new Taliban leadership will do next.
Mina’s warning to those members of the LGBTQI+ community still in Afghanistan is clear.
“In Afghanistan the trans women cannot dance, cannot move, cannot live. If they get the chance they should leave. They must!”
For Mina, although the change in attitudes in Pakistan is slow, her future looks safe. As the women make their final preparations for the night ahead and Mina deftly applies eyeliner to another one of her sisters under the weak glow of a single LED bulb, she ruminates on her current state of being.
“I’m happy and I like living in Peshawar. The trans community has a shield. Each other.”
Thank you to journalist/fixer Tariq Ullah. Oliver Marsden is a journalist and photographer based in Beirut. Every week we will be published work from his trip documenting the changes in Pakistan and Afghanistan after the takeover of the Taliban. Next week will be a photo series as he crosses the border to reach Kabul.