Despite a worldwide convoy of aid to Pakistan following floods that devastated the country in 2010, at least one group there says none has reached them: the transgendered community.
Pakistani transgendered people, known as "hijras," are calling on the government to issue them national identity cards they say they need to claim flood relief aid.
The hijras accuse the government of slow-walking the cards, despite a decision by Pakistan's Supreme Court to expand the group?s rights.
A petition calling on Pakistan's National Assembly to ensure hijras "receive the equal treatment they deserve, including access to flood relief and housing in displaced person camps," has garnered nearly 5,000 signatures worldwide since being posted Jan. 3 on a website run by social action network Care2.
?There is no other way for us to be heard and now when the Supreme Court of Pakistan has allowed us to have an identity card, we will fight for our rights,? Shahana Abbas Shani, President of Pakistan?s She-Male Association, recently told The Express Tribune. "We are also citizens of Pakistan."
The flare-up over flood relief comes amid a push by hijras for the same rights enjoyed by other Pakistanis. Even with a history of service in the courts of 17th and 18th-century emperors, hijras have long faced discrimination and harassment.
"People don't consider them as human beings," Muhammad Aslam Khakia, an Islamabad lawyer, told The Guardian. "They don't like to eat with them, drink with them or shake their hands."
There are an estimated 50,000 hijras in Pakistan.
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