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DHAKA – Sporting vibrant saris and heavy make-up, lots of Bangladesh’s transgenders, or hijras, spend their days begging from individuals caught in visitors and shopkeepers who give them small change in alternate for fortunate blessings.

The federal government acknowledged hijras as a 3rd gender in 2013, however they continue to be marginalized in a rustic the place sexual exercise between individuals of the identical intercourse is prohibited. Many hijras reside in abject poverty and haven’t any alternative for a correct training, a lot much less a job. Many are compelled to beg or interact in intercourse work to outlive.

However on January 1, new textbooks had been rolled out for hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren between the age of 11 and 13 that includes a phase on transgenders.

The textbook incorporates pictures of transgenders in respectable jobs, together with a beautician, a growth employee and an elected mayor, and the fictional story of a kid who transitions, takes a feminine identify and goes to reside with a transgender neighborhood.

The creators of the e-book hope it is going to assist nurture acceptance.

“We have now piloted it in very small areas, and we received a really constructive consequence, response from our college students, as a result of it was a totally unknown matter to them. It’s new data for them and so they accepted it very effectively,” stated Muhammad Moshiuzzaman, a member of the Nationwide Curriculum and Textbook Board.

“I believe they’re human beings identical to us. We got here to find out about them by studying from the e-book, we expect we should always assist them with their progress,” stated Fatiah Alam, 12, a scholar at Gomail Highschool on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka, one of many faculties that makes use of the brand new textbook.

Officers estimate there are about 10,000 hijras in Bangladesh however rights teams say the determine may very well be as excessive as 1.5 million within the nation of 170 million individuals.

The textbook has not been welcomed by everybody. A big crowd of conservative Muslims angered by the inclusion of hijras just lately held a protest at Dhaka’s fundamental mosque calling for the textbook to be recalled.

However, the transgender neighborhood and their supporters are hopeful that the textbooks will unfold consciousness and in flip assist enhance their standing in society.

“If our story catches individuals’s consideration and so they hold our struggling in thoughts, that might be good for us. Those that study extra about us will hopefully perceive after which work in the direction of our growth sooner or later,” transgender neighborhood chief Jonak instructed Reuters at her workplace in Dhaka. – Reuters

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