Pakistan law would protect transgenders

The Pakistani parliament is considering a legislative proposal that would protect the rights of transgender people after the brutal killing and torture of a transwoman in Peshawar.

Mehndi was the name that 17-year-old Adnan Alias Sufaid adopted when she completed her transition at the age of 14.

She was born in a village called Mardan before moving to Nowshera, a rural village in Peshawar, the capital city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to work as a dancer.

On August 14, her mutilated body was found in a rural area of Nowshera, with a gunshot to the face and multiple wounds on the body.

Two suspects are being held by the police in connection to the murder, identified only as Amad and Abir; one of them was Mehndi's boyfriend, transgender activist Qamar Naseem said.

Around a week before Mehndi's death, a transgender was killed by her brother because he thought she had brought shame to the family, which came one month after a separate but similar incident.

There have been 61 cases of transgender killing between 2014 and 2017, 38 of them are at the hands of partners, according to Naseem.