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Asia: Banyan: Knife-edge lives
亚洲：榕树：刀口余生
The effects of discrimination against transgender Asians are huge, if hidden.
在亚洲，变性人遭受严重歧视，却鲜为人知
It's a matter of survival, one Indian transgender woman explains: never make eye contact with anyone potentially threatening.
对于那些可能危及你安全的人，眼神交流都该避免，一位印度的变性女性解释道，因为性命攸关。
Yet in the warren of alleys, workshops and tenements that is Old Delhi, Mallika, with a defiant gleam, is having none of it.
然而，对于生活在旧德里的Malika来说，无论是巷陌闹市、工坊商店还是简陋公寓，尽管眼里闪烁着一丝不甘，她可真的与路人毫无眼神交流了。
Until recently neighbours used to mock her and denounce her as a danger to their children.
不久前，邻居还奚落，甚至告发Malika，认为她威胁到了他们的孩子。
With police connivance, they pressured her to leave.
在警察的默许之下，邻居甚至逼迫她Malika搬家。
But then SPACE, an NGO working with transgender people, took up her cause.
还好，致力于帮助变性人的非政府组织SPACE随后帮Malika解了围。
It taught Mallika her rights, and engaged the whole area in discussions, warning neighbours as well as the police that discrimination against trans or “third gender” people was illegal, and that prosecutions and fines would follow.
它让Malika明白自身的权利，组织整个社区一同协商，警告邻居和警察——歧视变性人和“第三性”人可是违法的，将面临起诉与罚款。
Now, Mallika says, her street has stopped mocking her, and she can go about “full of attitude”.
Mallika说，现在街坊都不敢再奚落她了，而她也终于可以“昂首挺胸”地上街了。
“It’s them who don’t dare look at me,” she boasts.
她得意地说，“现在可是他们不敢正眼看我了。”
There are 9m-9.5m transgender people in Asia and the Pacific, according to an estimate by Sam Winter of Curtin University in Australia, equivalent to 0.3% of the population.
根据澳大利亚科廷大学的山姆·温特估计，约有900-950万变性人生活在亚太地区，占人口总数的0.3%。
Others say the figures could be much higher.
一些人认为，可能还不止这个数。
In some countries, in some respects, their life is getting better.
在一些国家，变性人在某些方面的确生活得越来越好。
Courts or governments in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan have all recognised transgender people as a legal category and defended their rights to a certain extent.
孟加拉国、印度、尼泊尔和巴基斯坦都承认了变性人的法律地位，并且在一定程度上保护他们的权利。
A group of Muslim clerics in Pakistan recently declared that it was haram to persecute them.
在巴基斯坦，一群穆斯林教士宣称，迫害变性人是一种暴行。
Singapore has allowed hospitals to perform sex changes since the 1970s and formally legalised trans marriages (although not gay ones) in 1996.
而新加坡自20世纪70年代就允许人们去医院接受变性手术，并且在1996年就认可变性婚姻（尽管同性恋婚姻还是违法）。
Yet discrimination remains horrific.
然而，变性人仍面临着十分严重的歧视。
Transgender people are often the targets of violence, as a UNDP report highlighted last year.
去年，一份UNDP的报告曾明确指出，变性人经常遭受暴力迫害。
In China, the attackers are often relatives of the victim.
在中国，施暴者多为受害人的亲属。
One survey in Australia reported that three-fifths of trans men (ie, people who were deemed female at birth but now identify as male) suffer abuse from their partners.
一份澳大利亚调查指出，五分之三的变性人（比如出生时是女性现在变性为了男性）遭受伴侣虐待。
And in Fiji 40% of trans women have been raped.
在斐济，40%变性女性曾遭受强暴。
School dropout rates are invariably high, with an 85% rate among trans girls at secondary school surveyed in Vietnam.
变性人的辍学率一直居高不下。据调查显示，在越南，85%的变性女孩于中学辍学。
There are problems of getting work even in relatively tolerant societies: in Hong Kong, trans people have an unemployment rate four times the territory’s average.
即使在对变性人相对包容的社会，变性人仍然很难找到工作。在香港，变性人失业率是地区平均值的四倍。
Trans people are often stressed and suffer high levels of mental ill-health, yet the stigma makes it hard for them to find help.
变性人大多饱受严重心理疾病折磨，但在社会偏见的影响下，他们很难向外界寻求帮助。
Some resort to selling sex, making them vulnerable to arrest, violence and disease.
一些变性人走投无路之下只好从事性工作，可这却让他们更容易被逮捕，遭受暴力骚扰和感染疾病。
(Almost a quarter of trans sex workers surveyed in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, were HIV positive. )
譬如，在巴布亚新几内亚的首都莫尔斯比港，四分之一的受访性工作者感染了艾滋病。
Trans people are often targeted for harassment by the authorities under public-nuisance and vagrancy laws, too.
政府人员常常以妨害公共利益罪和流浪罪之名找变性人的麻烦。
If jailed, they are often beaten up by fellow prisoners.
变性人一旦入狱，他们经常会遭到其他狱犯拳脚相向。
All this is despite long traditions of relative tolerance for transgender people in many Asian countries.
尽管在许多亚洲国家存在着对变性人相对包容的悠久传统。
In India, for instance, hijras, a category of men who dress as women, many of them castrated, have a certain standing.
譬如，在印度，有一群打扮如女性的男性群体海吉拉斯，他们大多都接受过阉割，在社会上有一定地位。
They are thought to derive spiritual power from their sexual status, and so can bestow blessings or curses.
人们认为他们能从其性别身份获得精神力量，从而赋予他人祝福或诅咒。
They sing and dance at weddings. Failure to pay for their (often unbidden) attendance risks misfortune.
他们常在婚礼上又唱又跳，虽然经常不请自来，但如果主人不给他们出场费，那可就有可能因此而遭受不幸。
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