Simran Snigdha was begging when a chance encounter helped get her off Bangladesh’s streets and realize her artistic dreams — one of a growing number of transgender people securing formal employment as the government boosts support for the marginalized community.
The Muslim-majority nation’s roughly 1.5 million transgender people have long faced discrimination and violence.
Kicked out from homes and communities, cut off from education and shunned by many employers, they often turn to begging, the sex trade or crime.
Photo: AFP
“I didn’t get the opportunity — I had to extort people ... and did prostitution,” Snigdha said at a garment factory in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka.
The Bangladeshi government has implemented new laws, such as tax breaks, for firms hiring transgender people, helping pave the way for their integration into society.
Snigdha now works for a firm owned and run by another transgender woman, while pursuing her dreams of being a painter.
“I can now pursue my favorite work,” the 32-year-old said as she painted.
While she has found safety, Snigdha said there were scores more transgender artists in need of help.
“I pray they don’t go back to begging even for another day,” she said.
Like many of her peers, Snigdha fled her rural home in central Bangladesh for a transgender commune in Dhaka at 15 after facing abuse and rejection.
She lived under the protection of a guruma — a politically and socially connected transgender person who grants some economic security, but who can force residents into the sex trade, extortion or prevent them from getting an education.
Snigdha’s life changed in 2019 when she peered into a car window at a road crossing. Staring back was transgender factory owner Siddik Bhuyan Synthia — who asked her to join the business.
“In the past ... bullying [of transgender people] was the order, but [the] majority of the society are now our well-wishers,” Synthia said.
“The trans workers in my factory are very ordinary people. They don’t want to go to the dark businesses,” the 38-year-old said. “They prefer to have a social life just like any of us.”
Under Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina a growing tolerance for the rights of sexual minorities has seen a raft of new laws.
Transgender people in 2013 were officially identified as a separate gender, and in 2018 they were allowed to register to vote as a third gender.
The government has also unveiled affirmative action schemes and a series of benefits.
As a result, several transgender-owned and run businesses — mostly beauty salons, but also small factories — have started popping up across Dhaka in the past few years.
Such firms were “unthinkable, even a few years back,” said Shale Ahmed, executive director of sexual minorities charity Bondhu.
Apon Akhter is one of those changing that expectation.
At her garment factory in Dhaka, she employs only transgender people.
“When I started ... people mocked me saying transgender people won’t be able to do productive work,” the 32-year-old guruma said. “They said we belong to the streets. I promised myself I’d prove them wrong.”
While Akhter acknowledges that her 25 employees’ salaries are not high, they are still studying — knocking down another barrier that the transgender community faces.
“Once you are out of homes, you end up without education, and lack of education means there is no way a company can employ you in a high-paying job,” said Rafid Saumik from charity TransEnd.
Akhter said many of her employees came to her after suffering and barely surviving for years, and her factory gives them a chance to pursue their education.
“I strongly want them to see the light they’ve been looking for in life because we only have each other,” she said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese