Pakistan's sexual outcasts at risk from HIV, says report

[emad]

Enigmatic Hijra could trigger disease explosion

Declan Walsh in Lahore
Thursday June 9, 2005
The Guardian

On a sultry summer's night, men crowd into a tent on the edge of Lahore's red light district. They silently eyeball the slinking female figure on stage before them. She flirts, pouts and bats an eyelid, rolling her hips and running a suggestive finger across the lips.

But beneath the tottering heels, smeared mascara and sequinned shalwar kameez the curvaceous woman is, biologically speaking, a man.

She is a Hijra, part of south Asia's ancient and secretive community of transsexuals, hermaphrodites and eunuchs. Once influential in the Moghul empire's courts - serving royalty or commanding legions of soldiers - the "third sex" now live in the shadows of Pakistani society, as dancers, beggars or sex workers.

The enigmatic group emerges during the summer-fair season. Some dance at mafia-run fairgrounds with blaring Punjabi music and illicit gambling dens. Others work the "wall of death", whirling around as a motorbike roars around them and men shower them with money.
Now they are faced with a very real prospect of death.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1502196,00.html