A local broadcaster has hired a transgender newscaster for the first time in Pakistan’s history, reports said Saturday.

A senior Pakistani journalist posted  a picture of Maavia Malik on twitter and wrote Pakistan’s first news caster on screen now” -Maavia Malik.

Shiraz Hassan, who is associated with BBC, didn’t give further details.

Pakistan’s Senate, the upper house of country’s parliament, recently approved a bill for the protection of transgender persons, empowering them to determine their own gender identity

The report of a transgender person appearing on TV as a newscaster  received positive response on Twitter, with a  senior blogger and a female TV anchor expressing best wishes for her.

Trans Action Pakistan estimates there are at least 500,000 transgender people in the country of 190 million.

Last year a court ruled that transgender people would be counted in the national census for the first time.