ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s KoheNoor Channel has earned international praise byemploying first ever Transgender news anchor from the stigmatized minoritycommunity in rare and applausable development.
Pakistan, where transgenders are yet to get a separate identity, recentlygot its first transgender news anchor.
Kohenoor News — a private television channel in the conservative Islamicnation – went on-air on Saturday with a transgender woman on the screen asa news anchor, The Express Tribune reported.
Maavia Malik was first seen on Kohenoor News during a Pakistan Day bulletinon March 23.
The news soon went viral on social media with many appreciating the move bythe media organisation and congratulating Malik.
Malik launched her career in the entertainment industry as a model.
This came weeks after the Pakistan Senate approved a bill empoweringmembers of the transgender community to determine their own gender identity.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2017 willenable trans people to be recognised as they perceive themselves andregister with government offices as transgenders.
Also for the first time, transgender boy scouts from Pakistan could beheading to the haj pilgrimage in Islam’s holiest city as the Pakistan BoyScouts Association accepted its first 40 transgender members when they tookthe oath in Karachi last month.
Transgender people in Pakistan are often shunned by their families andforced into begging or prostitution to support themselves, although anascent activist movement is gaining attention and legal rights.
There is no official data on Pakistan’s transgender population, but thecharity Trans Action Pakistan estimates they number at least half a millionin a country of 190 million where homosexuality is a crime.
In 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the full recognition of the transgendercommunity, including the provision of free medical and educationalfacilities, microcredit schemes and job quotas for transgender people inevery government department.
The move by Kohenoor News garnered huge applaud on social media.