KARACHI, July 11: Speakers at a symposium on Thursday said eight children were born every minute and two people died in the same time making a net increase of six people to the country’s population with every passing minute.

Speaking at the symposium on “The Way Forward: Empower, Protect, Educate” organized jointly by the Pakistan Medical Association and the United Nations Population Fund at the PMA House to mark the World Population Day that was observed throughout the world on July 11 every year, they said that in that way every year over 3 million people were being added to the country’s population.

They said that while the country’s population was growing at an explosive rate the natural resources remained the same, besides whatever little economic progress was made was neutralised by the growth and as a result poverty increased with the passage of time.

They said that if serious efforts were not made and the population growth was not brought under control soon, the threat posed was greater than any external threats as it would eventually cripple the economy of the country.

Tracing the history of the Population Day they said that when the 5 billionth child was born on July 1987, the United Nations thought of doing something to highlight the issue, so the UN passed a resolution in 1994 and declared that July 11 would be observed as the world population day every year to create awareness among the masses majority of whom lived in the developing countries.

They said that though over 90 per cent of married couples had the knowledge about various contraceptive methods available, only 22 per cent of them used contraceptive methods.

They said that though family planning was alleged to be against religion, contraceptives were widely used in many Islamic countries including Indonesia (55 per cent), Iran (65 per cent) and Bangladesh (49 per cent).

They said that the family planning programme had not been a success as it had been in many other regional countries such as India, Bangladesh, Iran and Sri Lanka which had successfully brought down their population growth rate to a sustainable level. They said that the population control programme could succeed only when it was backed up by political will.

Tracing the history of the issue they said that the family planning programme was initiated during President Ayub Khan’s era, it received a major setback during Gen Zia’s government when it was almost scrapped and many people associated with it were sacked. The programme had received a new lease of life after the present government came into office.

They said that the population growth rate during the 1970s and the 1980s was over 3 per cent, that was among the highest in the world, had been brought down to the present 2.1 per cent that was also among the highest in the region, and the government was making efforts to further bring it down to 1.9 per cent in a couple of years.

They said that the population in East Pakistan had been more than that of West Pakistan, but now the population of Pakistan had surpassed the population of Bangladesh (former East Pakistan) as they had effectively controlled the growth.

They said that unless the women were made aware of the issue and empowered to make informed decisions, besides being provided with all the relevant information, population could not be effectively controlled. They said that though the women had to play the most important role in the population growth they were not given the power to take the decision whether they wanted pregnancy or not.

They said that the social sector, including the health sector, was given a low priority when budget allocations were made as was clear from this year’s budget in which the funds allocated for the President’s House were half of the total health budget. They said that the funds allocated for women’s health facilities were even less.

They said that owing to the poor health facilities for women over 35,000 women died every year during pregnancies and over 375,000 others suffered life-long ailments due to pregnancy-related complications.

They said that while early abortion was available in many Islamic countries such as Tunisia, Bangladesh and Turkey, it was allowed only for health reasons in Pakistan, owing to which many unwanted pregnancies culminated into deliveries.

They said that the issues were very complex and huge and the government or nongovernmental organisations could not handle it successfully; it was high time that NGOs and the government joined hands to counter that ever-growing problem effectively.

They said that women were not given their due rights given to them by religion as well as the Constitution and were treated very badly by the prevailing socio-cultural traditions as had become glaringly clear by the recent incidents of violation of women’s dignity in Southern Punjab where a woman was gang-raped on the orders of a panchayat- a council of elders.

They said that a society could not progress unless better reproductive heath facilities were provided to women.

Director-general Sindh Population Welfare Department Ghulam Akber Bhutto, Mehtab Karim, Laila Shah, Nasreen Khan, Shersheh Syed, Saeed Qureshi and others spoke on the occasion.