Revival through checking on population.. or else Pakistan will explode!!!

Amid the tide of gloomy economic facts released ahead by the international media that Pakistan is no longer stable and if army intervened again in it’s so called democratic framework then the American’s would have to take matters into their own hands. While local media attention remains hooked – rightly so – on shorter-term problems such as the ever-growing threat of militancy, the cresting divergence of society, a frequent power crisis and an inflation rate that only seems to upsurge, the greater demographic problem facing the country is too often relegated to the side-lines. While actions taken to address the population burst in Pakistan may appear less crucial – and will yield results evident only in the long-term – action must be taken now lest the currents building around this crisis crest into a tidal wave.

According to The Express Tribune;

“On regular, two people died and eight were born every minute in Pakistan in 2010, meaning the country’s population increased by six people every minute of the year, on average”.

The implications of these statistics are both enormous and alarming. It is now the high time to check on this massive increase in population before Pakistan explodes and we run out of our current insufficient resources. Well this can be done on micro as well as on macro level.  At first what we need to do is to eradicate the mistaken perception of our lower and so called religious segment that the use of contraception and the concept of family planning are against Islamic sharia. To counter this problem we need to proceed with a broad based-based national campaign so that the religious leaders could be brought into action. For such segment these leaders will play a symbolic part as they are being followed by them. Credibility and specialisation of these representatives can correct such mistaken concepts. This not only brought the issue into the mainstream but helped in the devising of a broad-based national policy that worked within, rather than against the country’s societal and cultural norms.

If women in emerging nations are given control over their resources and given credit for the work they do, they will not need the security that having so many children brings. Instead they will have a trustworthy communal rank and control over their education, employment, and family size. When women have an equal share in incomes, liberation, and autonomy, they can live serenely with men and will have scarcer children by choice without being limited directly in their reproduction rates. Finally, the children they do have will with any luck be formally educated so that they too will have choices in their life and will not be limited by their communal position. This type of change will not only require a change in the status of women, but also in the economic development of these countries. If the economy is given the opportunity to develop, couples will earn money and be able to bring their families out of insufficiency. This will then give them the ability to develop social status through the goods they possess rather than the number of children they have.

Sabeen Nasar.