LGBT rights in Pakistan

Being a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual is a considered a taboo vice in the Muslim-dominated Islamic Republic of Pakistan and gay rights are close to non-existent. Due to the religious intolerance towards such acts, the country's laws tend to oppose homosexuality and other forms of alternative sexual orientation which can be punishable up to a life sentence.

The more the practice of homosexuality is suppressed under wraps, the quicker it seems to have been thriving. Laws are harsh yet go unopposed in most cases. If individual orientation and acceptance isn't enough, young boys in some cases are forced to delve into sexual activities with older men. The taboo nature of LGBT issues, and political events since 2007, make it difficult to gain accurate information about how often the criminal and religious laws against homosexuality are invoked and what common punishments are used.

Homosexuality in Pakistan
Homosexuality or the act of indulging in sodomy is understandably a taboo in Pakistani society and there are little-to-none gay rights. Islamic laws forbid homosexuality and has introduced measures into the country's penal code to punish those who get involved. Sodomy is punishable up to life in prison and sexual orientations are hardly ever discussed. Act of affection towards the same gender is looked down upon in almost all of Pakistan. It is condemned yet rarely opposed. Seldom are the constituted sodomy laws applied to cases where people are seen to be involved in such acts, however religious penal code is almost always likely to be followed. These religious punishments may involve punishment by whipping or stoning to death.

A handful of gay men have fled Pakistan and obtained asylum in nations such like Canada and the United States. The founder of the British branch of Al-Fatiha Foundation is a gay Pakistani man named Adnan Ali who fled his nation's homophobia.

The World Organization Against Torture (Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture, OMCT) targeted Pakistan in 1997 over the recent whipping of two males, an adult and a minor, allegedly caught having sex in a public lavatory. Mohammad Yaman, a mosque worker and Fahimullah, 14, a student were lashed publicly on 1997-05-17 in Bara Bazar in Pakistan's western Khyber Agency, an area administered by local Afridi tribesmen. It was reported that Fahimullah was paid PK Rs.100 (US $3) for the act. The adult was whipped 75 times while the kid got 32 lashes. A Kahuta based Pakistani cleric stated on 2007-12-31 that every homosexual person should be killed to stop this sudden growth towards sexual awareness suggesting either beheading or stoning the involved.

In spite of these laws, there have been several incidents of pederasty reported as being made by clerics towards young boys at religious schools or madrasahs. Such cases go unattended and no successful prosecutions are made to punish those who are engaged in such acts. Child abuse in these cases usually involves anal sex. Where people using young boys to fulfill their desires is socially unacceptable, people who are aware of their sexuality sometimes feel embarrassed by these pretences of homosexuality. Gay men now feel less inhibited and are standing up for their sexuality.

Metropolitan areas like Lahore and Karachi have seen many a gay men enjoying themselves at parties aimed at proclaiming their gay pride. These usually involve large numbers of men dancing together in huge isolated rooms modelled into a discothèque environment and making out. In 2008 an incident that caught the eyes of passers-by was a group of cross-dressed men dancing to Bollywood tunes on a rooftop on the day of Basant. In 2003, however, three Pakistani men were arrested in the city of Lahore when one of their relatives turned them in for engaging in homosexuality at a private party. Their punishment is not known.

In 2005, a man named Liaquat Ali, 42, from Khyber region bordering Afghanistan married a fellow tribesman Markeen, 16, with the usual pomp and show associated with tribal weddings. Upon hearing of the man's religious infidelity, a tribal council told the pair to leave the area or face death.

Where men are now opening up to sexualities, lesbianism has lesser exposure in the country and one hears almost rarely of events that matter to women indulging in homosexual relationships. One such court case, decided in 2008, displayed the same disapproving attitude towards a lesbian relationship as it would have towards two men involved.

Transsexualism and intersexuality
In most South Asian nations, a concept of third gender prevails where members of the same are referred to as neither man or a woman. This notion of intersexuality is the closest Pakistan has towards accepting transsexualism. Khusras are people that have modified or genetically altered genitalia. Bearing resemblance to eunuchs, as the term is used in English, khusras or hijras are people, usually men, who have willingly adopted a lifestyle whereby they tend to live like a woman, occasionally cross-dressing in saris and common female attire.

Their presence in society is usually tolerated and are considered blessed in the Pakistani culture. Most hijras are deemed to have been direct cultural descendants of the court eunuchs of the Mughal era. Thought to be born with genital dysphoria and afraid that they might curse one their fate, people listen to their needs, give them alms and invite their presence at various events and functions, e.g., birth of a child, his circumcision or weddings. This mysteriousness that shrouds their existence has born of the fact that the hijra communities live a very secretive life. In 2004 it was reported that Lahore alone has 10,000 active transvestites.

People have started accepting acts of sex reassignment surgery to change their sex as a norm either compelled by gender identity disorder or just for the sake of it. There are situations where such cases have come into the limelight. A 2008 ruling at Pakistan's Lahore High Court issued permissions to Naureen, 28, to have a sex change operation, although the decision was applicable only towards people suffering from gender identity disorder.

Acceptance in media and popular culture
In 2005, Ali Saleem, 28, son of an army colonel gathered courage to appear on Geo TV's Hum Sub Umeed Se Hain as cross-dressed Benazir Bhutto. So loved were his performances that he has taken to act to extremes on-air and presents his own talk show where he appears as a dragged-up character named Begum Nawazish Ali. Begum would almost always interview influential government ministers, e.g., pro-Jamait-e-Islami former mayor of Karachi, Naimatullah Khan. His character self is often compared to Dame Edna Everage.

Government's stance on homosexuality
Pakistani law is a combination of the colonial and Islamic view. Under the Pakistan Penal Code (PCC), homosexuality is deemed a crime that is punishable by a life sentence or being stoned to death. With the Islamicisation of Pakistan policies under the rule of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Islamic sharia laws were intervened with the existing laws. A complete compilation of Islamic laws that amended the policies were called the Hudood Ordinance that stipulated severe punishments for adultery, fornication, consuming alcohol and homosexuality. What was excluded however was punishments for actions that involved pedestary. Like the concept of honour killings blurred, pedestary became confused with other carnal acts.

Under the colonial aspects of law, since 1860, homosexuality was a crime punishable by a sentence of two to 10 years in prison. However, when the Islamic laws were introduced to the system, amendments included primitive forms of punishments like whipping of up to 100 lashes and death by stoning. A homosexual Pakistani may face either secular or Islamic, or in some cases both punishments combined.

Under section 377 of the PPC, it states:

In the PPC, the provision defining the offence and prescribing the punishment for it is titled unnatural offences where people would argue that while homosexuality is generally an offence under Pakistan's Penal Code (PCC), this particular law does not specifically refer to homosexuality.

The UNHRC vote
The Islamabad government has always shown resistance against the issue of gay rights and never hid its intolerance. A UN vote cast on 2003-04-25, on issues of homosexual human rights was derailed at the last minute by an alliance of five disapproving Muslim countries which included Pakistan. The others being Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

The countries delayed their votes to stall the process and proposed amendments that were meant to kill the measure deliberately, removing all references to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, rendering the resolution meaningless. The resolution was tabled by Brazil with support from 19 of the 53 member countries of the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in Geneva. It called on member states to promote and protect the human rights of all persons, regardless of their sexual orientation.

Course of denials
The Government denies that homosexuality even exists in Pakistan and that anything that reaches close to the nature of such lifestyle is purely but the influence of westernisation. Pakistan is one of the few countries retaining penalty of death as punishment for homosexuality and one of the eight countries retaining capital punishment for the same. Others being Mauritania, Sudan, Afghanistan, the Chechen Republic, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. However, the UAE's stance is unclear.

Civil rights
No civil rights legislation exists to prohibit public or private sector discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and nor are political parties or organizations in Pakistan publicly supporting any LGBT rights legislation. Sociologists Stephen O. Murray and Badruddin Khan have written that the penal laws themselves are rarely enforced directly, but are used by the police and other private citizens as a form of blackmail.

Pakistan is under the spotlight after the derailment of the UN vote to make a formal statement supporting the human rights of LGBT people. During that same month, the chief minister of Pakistan’s south-eastern state of Sindh, Ali Mohammed Maher, was publicly outed as being gay and attending private parties in women's clothing, although he was allowed to keep his government job.

Related issues
With people afraid of proclaiming their sexuality to others due to the laws that forbid to, LGBT Pakistanis are finding others ways to come out to a larger mass. This involves discussions on social networking websites like Facebook, blogs and websites. The blogosphere so far has been immune to the modern emergence of queer desi identity. Blogs now highlight stories and issues specific to this marginalised community.

Other issues that are of notable concern are that of the spread of disease through unsafe homosexual contact. UNAIDS official reports suggest that they are targeting night truck drivers who are known for having sex with other younger men. Of most concern is the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Fighting HIV and AIDS
The AIDS pandemic first arose in Pakistan in 1987, and the official government reports estimate (as of 2004) that nearly 3,000 Pakistanis are living with the disease, although several critics believe that the government is underestimating the problem. It is believed that the number number may have risen to somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 people, and possibly as high as 210,000 (as in the UNAIDS Pakistan reports).

Today, a small number of organizations exist in Pakistan to promote greater education about HIV/AIDS, including the Association for People Living With AIDS/HIV In Pakistan, which was created in 2006. One of the few public educators is a woman named Shukria Gul, who got infected from her husband. She had been fighting ever since to raise awareness of the disease, and has been highly critical of the government's efforts. Ignorance about the disease, and how it is spread, is commonplace; this is particularly true among high risk groups such as prostitutes. Pakistani prostitutes do not have access to condoms or contraception, and there is little effort to provide any sort of public health education for this high-risk group.

Where there was no public call for tolerance or acceptance of LGBT people, the subject of sexual orientation and gender identity are becoming more openly discussed, especially in light of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. All but a handful of LGBT Pakistanis are in the closet, the most public form of homosexuality involving illegal prostitution. Young boys, and girls, are often forced into prostitution due to poverty, or outright coercion and have no means of protection.