Companies in Bangladesh will soon get tax breaks for employing transgender people in a new incentive announced by government leaders this week.
In a Thursday address to Bangladesh’s National Parliament, Finance Minister A.H.M. Mustafa Kamal unveiled a new program allowing businesses that hire more than 100 transgender people to recieve a 5% cut in their annual taxes. Smaller firms can still be eligible for the credit, according to Newsweek, if 10% of their workforce is comprised of members of the trans community.
Kamal said the incentive is designed to inspire a “rise in living standards and social and economic integration of the members of the third gender.”
“Compared to others, the third gender community is lagging behind … and left outside the mainstream society,” the government minister said in comments reported by Reuters. “Social inclusion can be ensured by involving active people of this community into production-oriented occupation.”
Bangladesh’s transgender population, commonly known as the hijra, faces extremely high rates of unemployment in a country where nearly 20% of residents live in poverty. This crisis was exacerbated by COVID-19, with a survey conducted during the height of the pandemic finding that nearly 5 in 6 trans people (or 82%) had no income for the past two weeks. Six in 10 respondents said they did not receive support from family members.
According to a 2020 report from Human Rights Watch, many trans individuals had taken to begging or engaged in sex work to survive. The advocacy organization called for increased “food, cleaning supplies, medicine, safe housing, and general economic support” to support those struggling, whether as a result of the pandemic or the widespread social exclusion trans people already face.
“The government should ensure the right to an adequate standard of living — enough food and water to live on, a decent place to live in — for everyone, without exception,” the group urged.
Given the challenges faced by transgender people in Bangladesh, local trans rights groups celebrated news of the government’s hiring initiative. Anonnya Banik, who serves as president of Sadakalo Hijra Unnayan Sangha, told the Agence France Presse that the program is “very good news for us.” Evan Ahmed Kotha, vice president of the Sex Workers’ Initiative, added in comments to the Dhaka Tribune that the announcement is a “wonderful decision.”
But activists worry about whether the program will be effectively implemented and maintained by federal bureaucrats. Joya Shikder, president of the advocacy group Somporker Noya Setu, warned that “many announcements that are made in support of the transgender community, but most of them don’t work out.”
“The government needs to monitor these proposals,” Shikder told Reuters.
Others felt that a tax break wasn’t enough to ensure the full integration of transgender Bangladeshis into the country’s workforce. Banik urged the government to offer the same tax breaks to businesses owned and operated by trans people, as well as interest-free loans for individuals who wish to start their own companies.
Tashnuva Anan Shishir, who made history in March as the first trans journalist in Bangladesh’s history to read a news report live on air, urged greater job training to make sure transgender people are able to compete for jobs.
“This is a good initiative, but these steps should take place at a much bigger scale,” Sishir, a newscaster for Dhaka-based Boishakhi TV, said in comments to Reuters. “Members of the transgender community also need to develop their skills. Only then will they get hired.”
Other countries have begun rolling out their own programs to fight unemployment among members of their local trans communities. Last year, Argentina’s largest bank announced that 5% of all its new hires would be transgender and its government enforced a 1% hiring quota for trans public sector employees. Meanwhile, a Brazilian lawmaker introduced a bill earlier this year proposing that workplaces that employ over 100 people set aside 3% of jobs for trans people.
The latter proposal, however, is unlikely to become law under Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian’s fiercely anti-LGBTQ+ president. The far-right leader famously claimed he would rather his son be dead than be gay.
Bangladesh is making strides toward greater progress, even despite the presence of seldom-enforced laws criminalizing homosexuality. Last year, the Muslim-majority country opened its first Islamic school for transgender students, which also offers vocational training to its estimated 150 pupils.
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