Bangladesh’s transgender entrepreneurs create safe work spaces

Simran Snigdha was begging when a chance encounter helped get her off Bangladesh’s streets and realise her artistic dreams — one of a growing number of trans people securing formal employment as the government boosts support for the marginalised community.

The conservative Muslim-majority country’s roughly 1.5 million transgender people have long faced discrimination and violence.

Kicked out from homes and communities, cut off from education, and shunned by many employers, they often turn to begging, the sex trade, or crime.

“I didn’t get the opportunity — I had to extort people… and did prostitution,” Snigdha told AFP at a garment factory in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka.

But in recent years the government has implemented new laws, such as tax breaks for firms hiring transgender people, helping pave the way for their integration into society.

Taken on 24 June 2021, a transgender person works at Bhuyan Fashion garment factory owned by Siddik Bhuyan Synthia, a transgender in Dhaka.

Snigdha now works for a firm owned and run by another transgender woman, while pursuing her dreams of being a painter.

“I can now pursue my favourite work,” the 32-year-old said as she painted.

While she has found safety, Snigdha said there were scores more transgender artists in need of help.

“I pray they don’t go back to begging even for another day.”

Working on the streets

Like many of her peers, Snigdha fled her rural home in central Bangladesh for a transgender commune in Dhaka at 15 after facing abuse and rejection.

She lived under the protection of a “guruma” — a politically and socially connected transgender person who grants some economic security, but who can force residents into the sex trade, extortion, or prevent them from getting an education.

Snigdha’s life changed in 2019 when she peered into a car window at a road crossing.

Staring back was transgender factory owner Siddik Bhuyan Synthia — who asked her to join the business.

“In the past… bullying (of transgender people) was the order,” Synthia told AFP.

“But [the] majority of the society are now our well-wishers.”

“The trans workers in my factory are very ordinary people. They don’t want to go to the dark businesses,” the 38-year-old said.

“They prefer to have a social life just like any of us.”

And under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina a growing tolerance for the rights of sexual minorities has seen a raft of new laws.

In 2013, transgender people were officially identified as a separate gender, and in 2018 they were allowed to register to vote as a third gender.

The government has also unveiled affirmative action schemes and a series of benefits.

As a result, several transgender-owned and run businesses — mostly beauty salons, but also small factories — have started popping up across Dhaka in the last few years.

Featured image: Taken on 25 June 2021, transgender people work at Uttoron Fashion And Shopno Tailors garment factory owned by Apon Akhter, a transgender in Dhaka.

Read more: The Daily Prothom Alo (English version)