Pakistan fails to control rapid growth of population

Rawalpindi

Comparing the population issue of Muslim countries, Pakistan is leading in population growth rate with 1.89 per cent, leaving behind Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt and Malaysia at a growth rate between 1.2 to 1.6 per cent.

Every year, 3.7 million people are being added in Pakistani population. At this pace and if the population growth rate does not slow down, it will outpace Indonesia by 2030 as the country with the largest Muslim population.

The population of Pakistan was 33 million in 1950 and its rank was 14th in the world. Today, it has reached around 194.5 million making Pakistan 6th most populous country of the world. Pakistan has the highest population growth rate in the world. Each family in Pakistan on average has 3.1 children. If the population of the country continues to grow with the same rate, it is likely to reach 227 million by 2025. Due to high birth rate, urban population will double in next 20 years.

Head of Community Medicine at CMH Lahore Medical College Professor Dr Muhammad Ashraf Chaudhry expressed this while talking to ‘The News’ in connection with World Population Day being observed on July 11 around the globe.

This year, the theme of World Population Day is, “Investing in teenage girls”. There are more youngsters in the world than ever before. With proper investment in their education and health, they would transform their country’s economies and future.

Teenage girls around the world face enormous challenges. Many are considered by their communities or parents to be ready for marriage and motherhood. Many are forced from school damaging their future prospects. These challenges are exacerbated among marginalised girls, such as those living in poverty or remote areas. When teenage girls are empowered, they become agents of positive change in their communities.

According to Professor Ashraf, the major factors responsible for high population growth in Pakistan are high fertility, declining mortality, custom of early marriages, son preference, high infant mortality, poverty, illiteracy especially of women and lack of women empowerment (major cause of overpopulation), trend of polygamy, religious constraints, beliefs, customs, traditions and lack of recreational activities.

He said one of the important causes behind over population is that Muslims have solid belief that God gives food to everyone even to an ant in a stone. So, why they reduce the size of the family?

He added one of the reasons for the high population rate is the reluctance of a large part of population to use contraceptives. Lastly, failure of proper implementation of government’s population planning policies is the major cause of population growth. Our contraceptive prevalence rate instead of increasing is decreasing, he said.

He said that in order to achieve replacement level of fertility in the country of two children per family, contraceptive prevalence rate must reach up to 60%, so a long way to go. Population welfare programme of Pakistan is one of the oldest in the world but it has not yielded the kind of progress as compared to other countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia, he said.

He said the rapid population growth rate in Pakistan is resulting in shortage of educational facilities, health services, food, living space, arable land, clean water, housing units, energy crisis, putting pressure on transportation, electricity, sewage, sanitation, and increase in unemployment, surge in food prices, land fragmentation, import of food, environmental degradation, climate change, urbanization, suicide tendencies, overcrowding and congestion in households, squatter settlements, poverty, unrest, increase in number of social evils like lawlessness, crimes, drug addiction and corruption and decrease in per capita income. It is affecting badly country’s economic development, he said.

To a query, Professor Ashraf said our Maternal Mortality Rate, 178 per hundred thousand live births and Infant Mortality Rate, 66 per 1,000 live births are still one of the highest in the world. This reality makes family planning in Pakistan one of the most urgent causes that need immediate support and attention, he said.

He said status of women in the society should be increased by providing educational and employment opportunities. Age of marriage should be raised to 25 years in case of males and 23 in case of females. If the marriages are postponed from the age of 16 to 20 to 21, the number of births would decrease by 20-30 per cent, he said.

‘Ulemas’ should be recruited for family planning mobilisation to remove misconception of the people about family planning, he said.

In order to create awareness among the masses about the benefits of small family and negative impact of early marriage, all channels of communication, including electronic and print media, outdoor publicity and interpersonal communication should be utilized, he suggested.

He said Zero Population Growth (ZPG) must be achieved, if the human species is to survive. A finite world can support a finite population. In order to achieve the ZPG, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) would need to drop from present 3.1 children per woman average to two-child average which is the Replacement Level Fertility. For this we will have to increase the contraceptive prevalence rate up to 60 per cent, he said.

Professor Ashraf believes that if we do not control population growth within justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity and will leave a ravaged world. When family is small, whatever little they have they are able to share. There is peace. By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down, he said.

Rapid growth was an emergency twenty years ago, now the country should be in the disaster management mode, and in need of doing something on war footings, he said.

As far as my knowledge is concerned, nowhere in the world, family planning services are separate from health department, he said. “Since the target is youth, using social media, mobile phone technologies, free online help services would prove beneficial. My choice for the slogan would be: Let every child be a wanted child,” said Professor Ashraf.