Abstract—The Male to Female (MTF) Transgenders in India
commonly known as the Hijras are one of the hardly researched,
abused, scorned, and callously neglected groups in Indian
Society. This paper is part of the doctoral research submitted to
the University of Mumbai entitled ‘The Status of Hijras in Civil
Society: A Study of Hijras in Greater Mumbai.’ The objectives
of this paper are to showcase briefly the socio economic status of
hijras and to understand the problems faced by them with
specific reference to their health and the harassment hijras face
due to the Police. An exploratory cum descriptive research
design with a non-random purposive sampling including the
snowball technique was adopted, to collect data from
sixty-three hijras cross the districts of Mumbai and Thane from
the state of Maharashtra, India. The socio economic status was
measured using the Kuppuswamy Scale (2005). Among the
hijras, more than half of them belonged to the middle class and
about forty percent belonged to the upper-lower class. Majority
of hijras stated that they faced several health problems and also
problems related to harassment, unlawful penalties, sexual
abuse, violence and deprivation of human rights. They chiefly
named the police including the traffic and railway police, as
perpetrators of violence and abuse.
Index Terms—Gender, transgender, Hijra, health, police.
Anitha Chettiar is with the College of Social Work, Nirmala Niketan,
(Affliliated of the University of Mumbai, India) and is also with the
Community Health Initiative and Research Action Group (CHIRAG)
working for People Living with HIV/AIDS (e-mail:
anithachettiar@rediffmail.com).
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Cite: Anitha Chettiar, " Problems Faced by Hijras (Male to Female Transgenders)
in Mumbai with Reference to Their Health and Harassment
by the Police," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 5, no. 9, pp. 752-759, 2015.