0
IT is the season of mindlessness. Seminars on climate change are in, while family planning services are out. Taking loans is in, while thinking with one’s own brain is out. Danish schools are in, while the 26.2 million out-of-school children in the country are out.
Pakistan has travelled too far in the wrong direction and seems in no mood to course correct.
There are at least four fundamental reforms that are needed for a turnaround. These include: addressing our burgeoning population; creating at least 25 administrative units, instead of continuing with the existing four huge and unmanageable provinces; putting an end to foreign loans; and placing every youngster from five to 16 years in a child-friendly school. Not undertaking these reforms is akin to opting for a miserable, chaotic, poverty-stricken, and insecure future.
It is best to follow Mark Twain’s advice and begin by ‘eating the frog’ and upgrading our most critical, most uncomfortable, and the least talked-about issue to the top of our ‘things to do’ list. Here are some harsh statistics that describe our population: 40 per cent of the people live on or below the poverty line, and face a further decline in per capita income and an increase in the poverty rate. Over 26m of our children do not attend schools, while those who do are unable to read or understand a simple text even by the age of 10.
The state must prioritise its population problem.
Over 3m children are involved in labour, 1.2m beg on the streets, 12m are malnourished, and 17,554 more arrive every day — including during holidays and weekends. (This calls for building 87 new schools every single day.) While the average global Total Fertility Rate has dropped to 2.2 and all 35 countries classified as developed economies have brought their TFR to well below 2.0, Pakistan remains mindlessly stuck at 3.6.
To expect any government in Pakistan to undertake a population planning programme on its own is a statistical improbability. The only option is for concerned citizens to initiate a dialogue and an advocacy movement to push the rulers for urgent and specific population control reforms. Begin by modifying the National Finance Commission Award, which currently incentivises provinces to boost their population in order to receive a bigger share of the 82pc fund allocated on the basis of population. This counterproductive incentive could be offset by retaining, say, 50pc of funds for the size of the population and 32pc for a reduction in the TFR achieved by each province.
The contraceptive prevalence rate in Pakistan is 34pc, while it is 67pc in India, 63pc in Bangladesh, and 77pc in Iran. There is a huge unmet need, and an estimated 17pc additional couples would want to use contraceptives if they were easily and inexpensively available. Pakistan should eliminate the 17pc ‘luxury goods’ tax imposed on imported contraceptives, and simultaneously encourage their local production and availability at subsidised rates — especially in urban slums and rural areas. The excellent Lady Health Workers programme ought to be revitalised and expanded with better training and wages. The government could encourage and ensure that every Basic Health Unit and private clinic across Pakistan also provides family planning information, counselling and services.
Family planning cannot be divorced from the social, cultural and economic conditions of our society. The poor wish to get their daughters married as soon as possible and to have sons as old-age insurance. A wise government could financially motivate the people by creating incentives for a) families that comply with the condition that girls must be at least 18 years before they get married (a law still to be enacted by three provinces); b) girls completing 10 years of education; c) couples who space their children and limit their offspring to two. The state could help reduce poverty by ensuring a minimum legal wage for all workers — currently, only 40pc of workers receive a minimum wage — and old-age pension EOBI — currently provided only to 10pc of workers.
Initiating an open discourse, effective use of media, premarital counselling and well-designed incentive programmes, as well as promoting girls’ education, expanding family planning services and seeking support from religious scholars, intellectuals and healthcare professionals are some of the lessons we ought to have learnt by now. However, none of this shall happen unless citizens speak up and the state shifts its focus and resources from raising parliamentarians’ salary and purchasing cars for bureaucrats to the grave issue of a galloping population within its boundaries.
The writer is an industrial engineer and a volunteer social activist.
Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2025
