Marvia Malik has made history in Pakistan by becoming the first transgender newscaster in a conservative Muslim country where members of her community are taunted in public, ostracized by family and targeted in violent attacks.To get more World news, you can visit shine news official website.

Pakistan officially recognized transgender as a third gender in 2012, but transgender people are largely confined to the margins of society, with most forced to survive by begging, dancing and prostitution. Sex reassignment surgery requires a court order, family approval, a psychiatrist’s note and a medical recommendation.At just 21 years old, Malik is already breaking down some barriers. Earlier this month, she became the first transgender woman to strut along the catwalk at a fashion show. But she says her true passion is journalism, and she’s thrilled to be the face of the evening news on the private Kohenoor network in her native Lahore.Our society treats transgender people shamefully, degrading them, denying them jobs, laughing at them and taunting them,” Malik said. “I want to change that.”

Like many transgender people in Pakistan, Malik had a difficult childhood. She was bullied by classmates, and her parents forced her to leave home after graduating high school. She took refuge with other transgender women and worked as a beautician to put herself through journalism school.

“My parents never accepted me as their child,” she said. “They will never accept me.”It’s a different story at the television network, where she says she has been welcomed with open arms.

“I cannot express the love and respect I have received here since I began work,” she said. “I have not felt any discrimination.”Some of her colleagues were initially resistant to the idea, said Junaid Ansari, the station manager who hired her, “but I decided to give her a chance.”

He said Malik is “doing fine” reading headlines, and promised she would face no discrimination. He said her performance had even inspired him to hire a second transgender woman, to work as a copy writer.There are other signs of change elsewhere in the country. A boy scout troop in the southern port city of Karachi enrolled 40 transgender youths last month. After the Supreme Court ordered the government to list transgender as a third gender on ID cards, the national agency responsible for issuing them said it would employ transgender people at its offices across the country.