Transgender activist Nayaab Ali named to Pakistan's Geneva UN delegation

Nayaab Ali, a transgender rights activist who heads protection units in the Islamabad police, will sit on Pakistan's official delegation to a United Nations review of the country's record on economic, social and cultural rights in Geneva on 3 and 4 November.

The Ministry of Human Rights notification issued this month names her as consultant on transgender rights in a four-member delegation led by Minister of State for Law Barrister Aqeel Malik.

BBC Urdu reported that this is the second time Pakistan has placed a transgender woman on an official delegation to a UN treaty review. Ayesha Mughal, then a transgender expert at the Ministry of Human Rights, represented the country at the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in February 2020. The UN Development Programme described that participation at the time as the first by a transgender person in a UN treaty review.

Ali told BBC Urdu she lived with her guru in Okara before moving to Islamabad. A transgender woman was gang-raped and severely beaten after a gathering there. When the woman asked the guru for help, according to Ali's account, the guru said such incidents happened to transgender people and that speaking out would achieve nothing.

Ali said she went with the woman to a local police station. Registering the case was difficult but it was eventually filed, she said. It was later settled between the parties without her knowledge and closed.

The price came later, she says. In 2016, while she was performing at a music festival in Mureedwala in Toba Tek Singh district, acid was thrown on her, burning parts of her body. She spent months fighting for her life, she told BBC Urdu.

After recovering she set up a community centre for transgender people in Okara, running classes in basic education, literacy, skills training and life skills. She contested the 2018 general election from NA-142 Okara as an independent candidate. She also helped shape the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018 and later worked at policy and consultation level with the Ministry of Human Rights and UNDP.

In the Islamabad police she is in-charge of the transgender protection unit and additional in-charge of the gender protection unit. Her work there covers improving the police response to violence against transgender people, protection centres, training and police procedures, according to the BBC Urdu account.

Harvard Kennedy School's Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights selected her as a global LGBTQ human rights fellow for 2025-26, where she worked on human rights, gender equality and the rights of transgender people in Muslim-majority societies. The governments of France and Germany awarded her the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law in 2020, and she has also received the Gallas International Activist Award. She has represented Pakistan at Commonwealth and UN forums.

The president announced on 14 August 2026 that she would receive the Sitara-e-Imtiaz for social services. BBC Urdu reported that she is the first transgender person in Pakistan to be named for the award. The formal ceremony is set for 23 March 2027.