Breaking barriers: 3 transgender persons hired by Sindh government

The newly-hired employees will work in the Women Development Department.

KARACHI: For the first time, the Sindh government has hired three transgender persons as full-time employees, Express News reported.

The three newly-hired employees, all of whom have bachelors degrees, will be working in the Women Development Department.

This latest move comes on the back of incremental progress in the rights and status of Pakistan’s significant transgender community.

This time last year, the transgender community was officially recognised on voting lists and issued Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs).

Later in April last year, they began participating in the national elections for the first time, as both candidates and voters.

In Pakistan, there are an estimated 500,000 “eunuchs” – a community of castrated men, hermaphrodites, transsexuals and transvestites.

In 2009, when the Supreme Court had 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.