Pakistan’s top judge has ordered the government to recognize eunuchs as a distinct gender in a landmark move towards granting their sidelined community rights, officials said on Thursday.
“Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary directed the government to add a third gender column on national identity cards,” said lawyer Mohammad Aslam Khaki, who filed the petition at the Supreme Court.
The judge also ordered a mechanism to protect eunuchs, known as hijras, from police harassment and to help them get their share under inheritance laws.
A spokesman for the eunuch community, which in conservative Muslim Pakistan lives on the fringes of society, welcomed the move and praised the judge.
“We salute him. He is doing a great job. We are thankful to him for giving us rights,” said Almas Bobby, who heads a hijra association.
In neighboring rival India, eunuchs and transsexuals earlier this year won a long-standing campaign to be listed as “others” - distinct from males and females, on electoral rolls and voter identity cards. (AFP)
