According to a new draft of the Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, forcing a transgender person to leave the house/village/place of residence will be treated as an atrocity and violence against them. The Bill also makes “forcibly removing clothes of a person of the transgender community, parading them naked or committing any act that is derogatory to human dignity, and compelling or enticing a transgender to beg or do similar forms of forced or bonded labour other than any compulsory service for public purposes imposed by government” an offence, according to a PTI report published in India Today.
The new draft of the bill has been cleared by committee from the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry and has now been referred for inter-ministerial consultation by the Ministry. It also aims to clear the air over reservation for the transgender community, and says that transgender people who do not belong to SC/ST category will be provided reservation under the OBC category under the existing ceiling.