A travel company and an LGBT rights organisation have teamed up to launch a taxi service that will be run by LGBT+ people and cater for India’s LGBT community.
The Humsafar Trust and Wings Travel train three transgender women and two gay men as part of a 12-month programme that will see them driving radio cabs in Mumbai.
Founder and director of Wings Travels and Management, Arun Kharat told The Hindi newspaper, : “We want them to be eventual entrepreneurs and own these vehicles.
“We want to ensure that the LGBT community in India enjoys the same rights and livelihood opportunities in India as their counterparts in the West.”
Kharat hopes to expand the service to the nine cities that the company currently operates in.
India recriminalised homosexuality in 2013, just four years after reversing a colonial law that banned homosexuality. There have been attempts to throw the recriminalisation out, but they have been blocked by right-wing members of India’s parliament.
