Women’s Ministry cuts funds from NGO helping transgenders

By admin-s On Dec 17, 2014

(MMO) – The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry has stopped funding a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that assists transwomen, sex workers and people with HIV, amid a brouhaha over transgender rights.

Mitch Yusmar Yusof, senior manager of the Pusat Bantuan Khidmat Sosial (PBKS) that is managed by the NGO Seed Foundation, said the ministry informed them earlier this month that it will not fund PBKS next year, marking an abrupt halt to the RM700,000 funding that PBKS has received from Putrajaya annually for the past seven years and which it relies on completely.

“What will happen to the community?” Mitch told Malay Mail Online today.

Malay Mail Online sighted a letter by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry to the Malaysian AIDS Council dated December 4 that said the ministry has considered and decided not to approve the allocation of funds for PBKS in 2015.

“In line with that, KPWKM wishes to express our deepest appreciation and thanks for the Malaysian AIDS Council’s (MAM) cooperation in helping the ministry operate PBKS for 2014. The ministry hopes that the good working relationship between MAM and the ministry will continue in future,” said the letter written by the secretary of the ministry’s national social policy division, Che Samsuzuki Che Noh, who used the ministry’s Malay initials.

No reasons were given for the government’s decision to stop funding PBKS.