Bangladeshi Transgenders Ignored By Nation's Census

Bangladesh's transgender community lodged complaints on Tuesday that officials were refusing to count them during a national census.

About 300,000 census takers are going door-to-door across the country of 146 million people, but many transvestites, eunuchs and asexual people say they are being ignored because they do not fit into strict gender categories.

Census 2011: Beggars, Sex Workers and Eunuchs Placed in Other Category
Beggars, sex workers and eunuchs have got a place in the Indian Census 2011 as the other category.

"They have counted only a few of us," Pinky, who only uses one name and is director of transgender rights group Badhan Hijra Sangha, told AFP.

"We have said time and again that we are neither male, nor female. We should be categorised as 'other' or transgender."

Transgender people in Bangladesh, a Muslim country, have lobbied for years to be categorised as "other" when declaring their gender on census and other official documents.

China Starts Population Census
Millions of counters set out to tally the world's biggest population in China, which was estimated last year to be over 1.3 billion.

One complaint lodged with the state-run National Human Rights Commission claimed that only 10 out of 175 transgender people in a community building were counted.

Shahjahan Mollah, head of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, which is carrying out the census, dismissed allegations of undercounting but confirmed that transgender people could only be registered as male or female.

Britain Could Give Up Census
On the World Population Day, news emerges from the UK that it is all set to end its own census. The two hundred-year-old tradition is being given the quietus.

"We are counting the people of all 27 small ethnic groups in Bangladesh. Our census takers have visited all people including the transgender to count them," he said.

India's latest census, which is ongoing, offers transgenders the chance to chose "other" as a gender category. The same change has been made in Nepal.

Population Census: India Struggles to Count Its People
The census, undertaken every decade since 1872, will see 2.5 million staff fan out over a vast country.

Bangladesh launched its census on March 15 with a ceremonial counting of the families of the president and the prime minister.

Across South Asia, transgender communities are among the most marginalised and discriminated groups in traditionally hierarchical, conservative societies.

Source-AFP