Transgender woman tortured and beheaded in Pakistan

Pakistani transgender protestors (ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images)

A trans woman has been tortured and beheaded in Pakistan.

Authorities have been unable to identify the corpse, which was found three days after her death.

The 25-year-old’s body was left in farmland in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

(Getty)

(Getty)

She was buried on Sunday after her photos and fingerprints were recorded, local police official Zahoor Ahmad told AFP.

He said police were investigating the death, and were also still trying to identify the victim.

Pakistan contains more than 10,400 trans people according to census data from August, though activists estimate that there could be hundreds of thousands more in the country.

Pakistan has taken several steps towards equality for trans people.

In 2009, the country became one of the first in the world to legally recognise a third gender when they handed out gender-neutral identity cards.

Earlier this month, a Pakistani university offered free education to trans students.

And in August, the government introduced a bill which aimed to protect trans people.

But despite these moves, violence and sexual attacks on trans people are still common in the Muslim country.


Last month, two transgender women were allegedly gang-raped in their own home.

Two other trans women were left brutally beaten when five men broke into the house rented by a group of trans women in the capital, Karachi.

(Facebook/Trans Action Pakistan)

(Facebook/Trans Action Pakistan)

And just a few weeks earlier, a gang of armed men opened fire on a group of trans people.

One trans person was killed in the attack, which was also committed in the capital.