Transgender candidates stake claim in Pakistan vote
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | April 18, 2013 20:55
Stereotyped as dancers, beggars and prostitutes, Pakistan’s vibrant but shunned transgender community is striking out into politics with individuals contesting elections for the first time.
They may only be seven out of 23,000 candidates with little chance of getting elected, but they have livened up an otherwise lacklustre campaign and set an important marker for their rights in the conservative Muslim country.
“People don’t believe we can be corrupt because we don’t have children and families,” says independent candidate Sanam Faqeer in the southern city of Sukkur.
“We don’t need to collect wealth and build villas for our next generations by stealing people’s money as other politicians do,” she added.
When the Supreme Court in 2009 recognised them as a “third gender”, ordering they be issued with separate identity cards, it was hailed as a landmark decision in a nation battling enormous human rights abuses and chronic violence.
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