Pakistan's transgender tribe of tax collectors
By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN
April 14, 2011 11:56 p.m. EDT
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/14/pakistan.tax.collectors/Karachi, Pakistan (CNN) -- Miss your tax deadline in the United States this weekend, and you might get a nasty letter at your door. In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, you might get Riffee and the gang. They are "transgender" tax collectors -- whose weapons include flamboyancy, surprise -- and a little lipstick.
In a move that speaks volumes about the lengths to which Pakistan is going to tackle tax evasion, Karachi officials are using Riffee - who like many people in South Asia works under a single name - and her team as enforcers with a difference. They are sent to the businesses or houses of debtors. The aim -- in this very conservative Muslim society -- to embarrass tax debtors into paying up.
