Bangladesh Opens First Ever School For Trans Students
Bangladesh has opened its first religious school for trans people, in Dhaka, where more than 150 students will study Islamic and vocational subjects free of charge at the privately-funded seminary, or madrassa, in the capital.
Many in the trans community identify as a third gender which is now officially recognised in the country. They have the right to vote and to stand for election, but conservative social attitudes still make it hard for them to access jobs and education.
Some migrate to cities and support themselves by singing and dancing at weddings and births, by begging or through sex work. It is considered that Bangladesh has about 10,000 hijras, as trans people are known in South Asia. Other estimates put the number at more than 50,000.
School officials, local councillors and hijra community leaders attended the opening day at the Dawatul Koran Third Sex Madrassa. Classes in the three-storey building begin on Saturday.
Funding for the madrassa comes from a foundation set up with money left by the late Ahmad Ferdous Bari Chowdhury, a businessman who wanted to educate the hijra community.
Until now there has been no school exclusively for trans people in Bangladesh.
People of any age in the hijra community can enrol at the school, with the hope that after studying there, students will have a chance to enter a number of different professions.
“Whether or not someone is of the third sex is identified at a fairly mature age. That's why we don't set any age limit. Anyone can be admitted here as soon as a transgender person is identified, no matter what age they are,” the madrassa's education and training secretary, Mohammad Abdul Aziz Hussaini, told the ‘BBC’ Bengali service.
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