Unveiling The Forgotten Files: Mahi Ali’s Journey of Defiance in Multan

In 2020, I set out to record a series of raw, unvarnished interviews with young people living with HIV (PLHIV) across Pakistan. The goal was simple: to give a direct voice to a community surviving at the intersection of heavy social stigma and institutional neglect. However, due to an absolute lack of funding and resources, these crucial recordings sat locked away in digital archives for years. Today, The Forgotten Files are finally brought to light.

Traveling for Survival

This inaugural chapter features Mahi Ali, a courageous transgender woman from Multan. Diagnosed with HIV in 2014, Mahi found herself in a city completely devoid of specialized clinical care, counseling, or basic mental health support for trans individuals. To secure the basic, life-sustaining medication she needed to survive, Mahi was forced to travel miles to Dera Ghazi Khan (DG Khan), enduring routine degradation, deep-seated social hostility, and systemic bias at every checkpoint and clinic counter along the way.

The Modern Framework of Risk

While local healthcare services have slowly expanded over the years, the numbers prove that the structural violence against transgender individuals remains staggering. Transgender communities face an infection risk 14 times higher than the general population, with nearly 79% of the community reporting active discrimination inside medical settings.

Produced under the umbrella of the Young Positive People of Pakistan (YPlusPakistan), this film is the first of many upcoming chapters. As a positive filmmaker and activist, I intend for these archives to serve as permanent, living evidence of our community’s fight for dignity, medical access, and fundamental human rights.