Effective awareness a must to control population, says minister

LAHORE:Punjab Minister for Population Welfare Dr Jamal Nasir has said that giving awareness to the male members of the society and changing their mindset was imperative for population control because a family could not be kept small without mutual consent of the husband and wife.

The minister was addressing a briefing session during his visit to the office of Punjab Population Innovation Fund on Monday.

He said that Pakistan has become the fifth most populous country in the world but it was 154th in the ranking of Human Development Index list of 189 countries, which was a matter of serious concern.

According to the new census, the population of Pakistan was more than 240 million, which was increasing rapidly every year putting additional burden on national resources, he added.

Dr Jamal said that talking about family planning matters was a sensitive subject in our society and discussion about population control measures and convincing others for adopting these measures was a difficult task.

The minister said that youth of the country constituted 60 percent of the population and they need to be provided essential information about family planning before getting married and immediately after it, in order to maintain reasonable gap between their children.

Dr Jamal underlined the need for hiring services of male social mobilisers who could apprise men at their work places about the significance of family planning and guide them about its methods.

The health minister said that digital media should be utilised to effectively disseminate the message of spacing between children.He said that family planning services should be available easily and the shyness associated with asking for contraceptive should be removed with the help of an awareness campaign.

Secretary Population Welfare Salman Ejaz and Fund CEO Talha Hussain Faisal welcomed the minister on his arrival. General Managers Amina Akhsheed and M Qayyum gave a detailed briefing about job description, responsibilities and performance of their organisation.