The Eunuchs of Pakistan

[Lady Macbeth]

The Hijras of Pakistan

by Dennis Drenner




On the bottom rungs of Pakistan's social ladder, the eunuch-transvestites or "Hijras" scrape out a hard existence. Cultural descendants of the court eunuchs of the Mughal Empire (1526-1858), the Hijras now earn their living as beggars, dancers and prostitutes. Though often reported on in India, the Hijras of Pakistan are relatively unknown outside of that country. Most Pakistani cities have sizable Hijra communities, divided into clan groups living mostly in slums and presided over by a leader or guru. Hijra means hermaphrodite in Urdu, but most Hijras are homosexual transvestites, some of whom have gone through a crude sex-change operation. The Hijras are both feared and pitied in Pakistan, feared for their supposed ability to place curses, pitied for being outcast children of Allah. Most Hijras leave or are ejected from traditional Pakistani families around puberty and then join the Hijra community for life. Many have also reported that Hijras will kidnap young men, forcibly castrate them and force them into prostitution, gaining income for the community. More Hijras, however, earn their living by begging, and by dancing at carnivals, weddings and births. Hijras are especially apt to visit the families of recently born male children where they are paid to give blessings--or to simply go away.

[Lady Macbeth]

Eunuchs begin fight for Pakistan rights



Shazia knows what she sees when she looks in the mirror: a woman, feminine, delicate, attracted to beauty. But when others look at Shazia they see something else: a misfit.
"People start staring at me in such a manner as if an animal from the jungle has come into the city." Shazia says.

Shazia belongs to Pakistan's community of eunuchs. It is a term here that loosely refers to transsexuals, transvestites or hermaphrodites, like Shazia, who are born with both male and female sex organs.

For Shazia what nature created, has made a life of hell.

"I get so confused. I feel very strange that Allah could have made me a boy, or he could have made me a girl, but this way, neither boy nor girl. This life is very strange. It is a bad life," Shazia said.
"I do not want to accept this life. Had it been legal to commit suicide I would have done it."

When she was a child, Shazia said she had no doubt that she felt more a girl than a boy.
"When I used to go to school there used to be benches for boys on one side and girls on the other; my teacher always made me sit with the girls." she said.

Shazia left home when she was in her early teens. She said it was to save her family embarrassment and shame.

Like other eunuchs in Pakistan, she has lived in colonies. They are often shunned by their families and forced to make a living by begging or as prostitutes.

The colonies can be brutal places, where young people are often beaten and exploited.

When Shazia was 17, she says she was drugged and the head of the colony performed brutal surgery severing Shazia's penis.

But Shazia has survived the taunts, the humiliation and the savagery; now she is fighting back.

Shazia has formed an action group and is campaigning for eunuchs like her to get proper recognition.

Right now her state identity card lists her as a male. She wants to be counted as a whole person.

Shazia has found a champion, human rights lawyer, Muhammad Aslan Khaki.

Dr. Khaki presented a petition to the Supreme Court, leading to the first register of eunuchs in Pakistan.The court has ordered Pakistan's government departments to carry out a survey and recommend measures to fully integrate eunuchs into society without prejudice.

In earlier centuries eunuchs were seen as having the power to bring good luck. For Shazia and others, their luck may finally be changing.

[Jana]

Pakistan to recognise eunuchs
Bronwyn Curran, Foreign Correspondent

Last Updated: June 30. 2009 9:50PM UAE / June 30. 2009 5:50PM GMT


RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN // After decades of ignominy and exploitation as painted dancers, singers and beggars, Pakistan’s “third sex” is to be officially surveyed and registered under the direction of the Supreme Court.

Iftikhar Chaudhry, the liberal-minded chief justice, ordered the establishment of a commission to conduct the survey after a prominent jurist filed a petition drawing attention to the plight of Pakistan’s several hundred thousand eunuchs.



Until the registration takes place, the number of eunuchs is unknown. Community leaders estimate it is at least 400,000.

The jurist, Mohammed Aslam Khaki, was moved to champion the transgender community after a group of them were beaten and robbed by police raiding a wedding party in Taxila, an hour’s drive west of Islamabad, where they were giving a dance performance. The attack occurred in January.



An association set up to improve their situation has welcomed the move as a first step towards greater protection of their rights.

“This is the first time in history that any official has even thought about us,” said the association’s president, Bobby, who uses only one name.

“The chief justice’s decision will give us a whole new identity, as a recognised minority. We will be able to build on that and get our rights.” Bobby is the first president of the association, established five years ago in response to systematic discrimination and abuse. The association is based in Rawalpindi, the bustling market city next to Islamabad, where thousands of eunuchs have made their home in cramped rented rooms.


Bobby, who runs the association from her traditional haveli home in Rawalpindi’s old quarter, wears the traditional women’s outfit of shalwar kameez with a dupatta slung across her distinctive décolletage.

The census ordered by the chief justice, who has built a reputation for reaching out to minorities in need of protection, will be conducted in all four provinces and the information compiled in a database. It will record eunuchs’ family origins and look into their living and working conditions.



Eunuchs in Pakistan are often denied entry to schools and hospitals, and refused properties for rent or purchase. Discrimination follows even in death, when many are denied formal burial rites. It makes for a long wish list from their association.

“We want separate residential colonies because, generally, people don’t want us in their neighbourhoods,” said Bobby, 43, who has retired from dancing after 26 years of performing. “We need separate hospitals in each city. Our people don’t like to go to male colleges because they get teased, so we need separate schools, too. We also need separate graveyards.”



Eunuchs have a long history on the subcontinent. In past eras, the term eunuch denoted a castrated male. Such men were considered non-threatening enough to hold sensitive positions in the palaces of sultans and Mughal emperors as courtiers and guardians of the harem. They were revered among old India’s nobility to such a degree that poor families were tempted to castrate a son so he could attain a prestigious position at court and guarantee his family a more comfortable life.



Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal, outlawed castration in 1668. Eunuchs in the Islamic republic today are rarely castrated. The contemporary use of the term refers essentially to transgender male-to-females. Eunuchs make their living primarily as dancers at wedding parties. They dance in troupes of roughly 12 members and earn anywhere from 500 to 3,000 rupees (Dh25 to Dh140) each.

But they are dancers in a sometimes pious society. Weddings do not take place during Islamic observances of the months of Ramadan and Muharram, and the extreme summer and winter months see few weddings, leaving just over half the year for work as a performer.



By tradition eunuchs also turn up uninvited at households welcoming a newborn son, where they clap and sing in celebration in return for gifts of sugar, clothes and cash. Many turn to begging. Some to prostitution.

“Our conditions are very bad. Sometimes our people have no money to pay their rent or eat,” Bobby said. “We cannot visit good doctors or private hospitals, but when we go to government hospitals they mock and shout at us.”

Pakistan to recognise eunuchs - The National Newspaper

[Neo]

[Jana]

Help on way for eunuchs in Pakistan
Nasir Iqbal
17 June 2009

A ray of hope has emerged in Pakistan for transgendered people, as the Supreme Court has ordered a survey of eunuchs to save them from a life of shame. They lead an ignominious life and are the most oppressed and deprived segment of the society.

Islamabad: A bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed and Justice Mahmood Akhtar Shahid Siddiqui, issued the order to the provincial governments on Tuesday while taking up a petition seeking the establishment of a commission to emancipate effeminate men who are ostracised by the society for no fault of theirs.

The Supreme Court has ordered a survey of eunuchs in the country to save them from a life of shame/ Photo credit: The Dawn Islamist jurist Dr Mohammad Aslam Khaki filed the petition for the welfare of the unfortunate and vulnerable people left by the society to live by begging, dancing and prostitution.

He took up their cause after police raided and arrested several eunuch-transvestites in Taxila recently.

Dr Khaki researched about the conditions of the ignominious merrymakers and discovered them to be the most oppressed and deprived segment of the society, subjected to humiliation and molestation.

On a query he told the court that there are about 80,000 eunuchs in Pakistan. Parents give their gender-confused children into the care of gurus (leaders of eunuchs) at a very tender age.

They get no opportunity to education and instead are trained to beg, dance or forced into prostitution, according to the petitioner.

The court required the advocate generals of all the provinces to arrange a survey through provincial social welfare departments to compile facts and figures about eunuchs.

The departments would also evaluate facilities available to hermaphrodite children and determine the offence their parents commit in handing them over to gurus at the time of their birth.

Transgendered people are misunderstood and ridiculed for being born in the wrong body and are condemned to exist at the bottom rung of Pakistan’s social ladder.

The court order requires the social welfare departments to register particulars of the eunuchs, learn about the children living with them and find out the circumstances or compulsions that forced the parents to give them into the care of gurus.

‘Practically such children are under constant habeas corpus since they cannot leave their gurus and compelled to do whatever ordered against their will,’ Dr Khaki said while talking to Dawn.

They live in sizeable communities, divided into clan groups, and mostly in slums, he said.

Such people are even denied their right to inheritance and civil rights. They cannot travel freely in trains, buses or use facilities available to common citizens of the country.

The court asked the provincial governments to submit detailed report and decided to take up the matter again after four weeks.


Source : The Dawn

[Selma Shirazi]

Oh my God, I have seen them once. They were dressed funny and they were clapping with their hands all the time and the public seemed to love them.
One of them touched my hair and wanted to take me away from mom, I was really scared to death because they wouldn't let me go till mom gave them some money. These are funny but scary people specially for tourists.