A Critical Analysis of the Right to Equality of the Hermaphrodites in Bangladesh: Rights Based Approach

‘Right to equality’ is the crucial right of every human being, well-recognized in the international instruments and in the national constitutions of a plethora of countries including Bangladesh. Against that backdrop, Hermaphrodites, popularly known as ‘Hijras’, being born as human as well as being citizens of this country are franchised to the ‘right to equality, as they got sanctioned by the Government of Bangladesh in 2013. Notwithstanding that, it is regrettably perceived that the current status of the right to equality of the Hijra populace is not even close to a decent scenario, especially with regard to education, employment and inheritance; rather they are living a horrendous life in Bangladesh. The policy-makers do not seem to be concerned about their plight. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to traverse into the extent of actualization of the right to equality of this group with regard to education, employment, and inheritance, to discern the impediments in the way of materializing these rights, and to put forward a number of recommendations to ameliorate the scenario in order to place them with the common mass on the basis of proportionate equality regarding these rights. For this research, several research questions have been investigated. With a view to exploring the answers, a qualitative approach has been adopted and secondary data have been accumulated from diverse sources including books, research articles, newspaper articles, published interviews, focused group discussions, questionnaires, internet sources, etc.