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Youth in Pakistan

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Population Pyramid of Pakistan as per the 2017 Pakistan Census

Pakistan's estimated population (excluding the disputed areas of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan) was 207,774,520 according to the provisional results of the 2017 Census of Pakistan.[1][2][3] Pakistan is the world's fifth-most-populous country.

Majority of the population are part of the youth age bracket: in 2019, 34.8% were thought to be 14 or younger, though in 1990 this had been much higher at 43.7%.[4] In 2010, the figure for those aged 24 or less was 62.19%.[5]

Many young Pakistanis are affected by serious issues around education in Pakistan; only 68% of Pakistani children finish primary school education[6] and Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world.[7] Other areas with significant issues include: child marriage in Pakistan, child labour in Pakistan, street children, malnutrition, and health problems.

Unemployment poses an escalating concern in Pakistan. With a population exceeding 220 million and a workforce of approximately 65 million, the country faces challenges in offering an adequate number of job opportunities for its citizens. This issue is particularly acute for the youth, who constitute roughly 60% of the population and confront an unemployment rate of approximately 10%.[8]

Education

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Main article: Education in Pakistan
Children sitting and standing in a room
A primary school in a village in the Sindh region

Article 25-A of the Constitution of Pakistan obligates the state to provide free and compulsory quality education to children of the age group of 5 to 16 years. "The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such a manner as may be determined by law".[9]

Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world[7] and the second largest out of school population (22.8 million children)[10] after Nigeria. Only 68% of Pakistani children finish primary school education.[11]

Child marriage

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See also: Child marriage in Pakistan
Women and girls in Qamber, Shadadkot, north-west Sindh, Pakistan

The practice of child marriage is prevalent in Pakistan, with the highest prevalence in the Sindh province. It disproportionately affects the daughter of a Pakistani family.[12] Defined as marriage before the age of 18 years, child marriage is widespread in Pakistan and linked to spousal violence.[13] Child marriage occurs most often in rural and low-income households where education is minimal.[13] The Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey conducted from 2012 to 2013 reported that 47.5% of currently married women aged 15 to 24 had been married before the age of 18.[13] Moreover, of those child marriages, one-third of those women reported spousal violence.[13][14][15] Another UNICEF report claims 70% of girls in Pakistan are married before the age of 16.[16] As with India and Africa, the UNICEF data for Pakistan is from a small sample survey in the 1990s.

The exact number of child marriages in Pakistan below the age of 13 is unknown, but rising according to the United Nations.[17]

Another custom in Pakistan, called swara or vani, involves village elders solving family disputes or settling unpaid debts by marrying off girls. The average marriage age of swara girls is between 5 and 9.[16][18] Similarly, the custom of watta satta has been cited[19] as a cause of child marriages in Pakistan.

According to Population Council, 35% of all females in Pakistan become mothers before they reach the age of 18, and 67% have experienced pregnancy – 69% of these have given birth – before they reach the age of 19.[20] Less than 4% of married girls below the age of 19 had some say in choosing her spouse; over 80% were married to a near or distant relative. Child marriage and early motherhood are common in Pakistan.[21]

Street children

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See also: Street children

Pakistan's major cities and urban centers are home to an estimated 1.2 million street children. This includes beggars and scavengers who are often very young. The law and order problem worsens their condition as boys and girls are fair game to others who would force them into stealing, scavenging, and smuggling to survive. A large proportion consumes readily available solvents to stave off hunger, loneliness, and fear. Children are vulnerable to contracting STDs such as HIV/AIDS, as well as other diseases.[22] The number of street children in Pakistan is estimated to be between 1.2 million[23][24] and 1.5 million.[25] Issues like domestic violence, unemployment, natural disasters, poverty, unequal industrialization, unplanned rapid urbanization, family disintegration, and lack of education are considered the major factors behind the increase in the number of street children. Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) carried out a study which presented 56.5% of the children interviewed in Multan, 82.2% in Karachi, 80.5% in Hyderabad, and 83.3% in Sukkur were forced to move on to the streets after the 2010 and 2011 floods.[26]

Child labour

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A Pakistani boy working as a cobbler
Main article: Child labour in Pakistan

Child labour in Pakistan is the employment of children for work in Pakistan, which causes them mental, physical, moral, and social harm.[27] The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that in the 1990s, 11 million children were working in the country, half of whom were under age ten. In 1996, the median age for a child entering the work force was seven, down from eight in 1994. It was estimated that one quarter of the country's work force was made up of children.[28]

Domestic violence

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Main article: Domestic violence in Pakistan

Domestic violence leads to increased risk towards certain health outcomes like major depression, dysthymia, conduct disorder, and drug abuse.[29] Moreover, because women are primary caretakers in Pakistan, children also face increased risk for depression and behavioural problems.[30]

Health

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See also: Health in Pakistan and Healthcare in Pakistan

Malnutrition

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Malnutrition is one of the most significant public health problems in Pakistan, and especially among children. According to UNICEF, about half of children are chronically malnourished.[31] National surveys show that for almost three decades, the rates of stunting and acute undernutrition in children under five years of age have remained stagnant, at 45% and 16%, respectively.[32] Additionally, at the “national level almost 40% of these children are underweight...and about 9% [are affected] by wasting”, diseases where muscle and fat tissues degenerate as a result of malnutrition.[33] Similarly, women are also at risk, with about half suffering from anemia, which is commonly caused by iron deficiency.[34]

Mental health

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Depression often starts at a young age and affects women more commonly than men.[35] One or two mothers out of 10 have depression after childbirth. Depression also limits a mother's capacity to care for her child, and can seriously affect the child's growth and development. A study showed that exposure to maternal mental distress is associated with malnutrition in 9‐month infants in urban Pakistan.[36]

Polio

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A child receives the oral polio vaccine (USAID).
Main article: Polio in Pakistan

Pakistan is one of the two remaining countries[37][38] in the world where poliomyelitis (polio) is still categorized as an endemic viral infection,[39] the other country being Afghanistan.[37] As of 20 July 2020, there have been 60 documented cases in Pakistan in 2020, and 146 documented cases in Pakistan in 2019.[40][41] The total count of wild poliovirus cases in Pakistan in 2018 was 12.[42] By 1991, only 83% of Pakistani children had been vaccinated.[43] Research by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in April 1998 cited a failure to vaccinate, vaccine failure, and inadequate immunization strategies as causes for the continued incidents of polio in this time.[44] Reasons for under-vaccination included the population being uninformed, considering vaccination unimportant, and having to travel long distances to vaccination sites.[44]

In March 2001, about 27 million children were vaccinated across the country in the hope that Pakistan could be virus-free by the end of that year.[45] As of 2004, when there were 30 million children in Pakistan under five, about 200,000 health workers were required for a vaccination campaign that was carried out eight times a year.[46] A documentary, Polio True Stories, was aired on several television channels to make people aware of the problems facing people affected by the disease.[47] In August 2015, the country launched an injectable polio vaccine intended to treat four million children and bring Pakistan closer to its goal of eradication by 2016.[48] While the new vaccine is pricier than the traditional oral polio vaccine (OPV) and requires that a doctor or nurse administer it, the injection needs only one dose, not repeated doses, to generate immunity.[48]

It has been shown that low parental - specifically, maternal - literacy and knowledge regarding vaccines and immunization schedules, poor socioeconomic status, and residence in rural areas all are attributable to decreased rates of immunization completion.[49] Parental education is one of the most important determiners of whether children will complete their vaccinations. In a study of two-parent households in Pakistan, it was shown that the father's knowledge about health most impacted immunization decisions, with an effect so large that some researchers contend improving education will improve health more than even the provision of health services.[50] Widespread malnutrition in Pakistani children is a factor in lowered resistance to disabling diseases and reduced efficacy of the polio vaccine.[51]

Polio has had drastic effects on the health of the population of Pakistan and on the nation's healthcare infrastructure and economy. The WHO estimates that 65–75% of polio cases in developing countries occur in children under 3 years of age, with 95% of all cases occurring in children under 5 years of age.[52] Researchers at the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University quantified the disease burden of various diseases in Pakistan; in the year 1990, a Pakistani person with polio averaged a loss of 1.13 healthy life years to the disease.[53] The duration of disability of polio, averaged over 1000 people, was 81.84 years, the equivalent of diseases including diphtheria, childhood meningitis, and measles.[53]

See also

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Wikiquote has quotations related to Youth in Pakistan.

References

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  1. ^ "Provisional Summary Results of 6th Population and Housing Census – 2017". Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Archived from the original on 30 October 2017. Retrieved 2020-01-28.
  2. ^ http://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/population-census Population census
  3. ^ https://tribune.com.pk/story/1490674/57-increase-pakistans-population-19-years-shows-new-census/ The Express Tribune – 6th census findings: 207 million and counting
  4. ^ Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2019 Revision
  5. ^ "Demographic Yearbook". UN Data. United Nations. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  6. ^ Stuteville, Sarah (August 16, 2009). "seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009670134_pakistanschool16.html". The Seattle Times.
  7. ^ a b "Literacy Rate in Pakistan Province Wise | Pakistan Literacy Rate". Ilm.com.pk. 2010-09-28. Retrieved 2013-12-10.
  8. ^ "Causes And Effects Of Unemployment In Pakistan". www.instacare.pk. Retrieved 2023-06-30.
  9. ^ "Constitution of Pakistan Artikel 25A (English translation)" (PDF). na.gov.pk. 28 February 2012. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  10. ^ "Education".
  11. ^ Stuteville, Sarah (August 16, 2009). "seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009670134_pakistanschool16.html". The Seattle Times.
  12. ^ Goonesekere, Savitri, Children, Law and Justice: A south Asian Perspective, p. 20.
  13. ^ a b c d Nasrullah, Muazzam; Zakar, Rubeena; Zakar, Muhammad (2014). "Child Marriage and Its Associations With Controlling Behaviors and Spousal Violence Against Adolescent and Young Women in Pakistan". Journal of Adolescent Health. 55 (6): 804–809. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.06.013. PMID 25123525.
  14. ^ Nasrullah, M; et al. (2013). "Bielefeld University, Germany, Girl Child Marriage and Its Effect on Fertility in Pakistan: Findings from Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey, 2006–2007". Matern Child Health J. 18 (3): 534–43. doi:10.1007/s10995-013-1269-y. PMID 23580067. S2CID 26184621.
  15. ^ "Social customs: 'Nearly half of Pakistani women are married before the age of 18' – The Express Tribune". 31 August 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
  16. ^ a b "Pakistan's child brides: suffering for others' crimes". thestar.com. 26 August 2013.
  17. ^ "IRIN Asia – PAKISTAN: Child marriages on the rise across rural Sindh – Pakistan – Children – Human Rights". IRINnews. 31 March 2006.
  18. ^ Mehreen Zahra-Malik. "Child brides blot tribal Pakistan". aljazeera.com.
  19. ^ Lane, Samuel (2012). "Stealing innocence: child marriage in Pakistan" (PDF). Abo Akademi University. Finland. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2013-09-14.
  20. ^ Adolescents and Youth in Pakistan Archived 2014-03-12 at the Wayback Machine Zeba Sathar, Cynthia Lloyd, et al., Population Council, with support from UNICEF; pp. 96–101
  21. ^ Sathar, Zeba; Lloyd, Cynthia; et al. "Adolescents and Youth in Pakistan" (PDF). Population Council, with support from UNICEF. pp. 188–193. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-03-12.
  22. ^ Surviving on the Streets Pakistan, Poverty Unveiled.World Vision
  23. ^ "Ilm-o-Amal". Ilm-o-Amal. Retrieved 12 September 2011.
  24. ^ "PAKISTAN: 1.2 Million Street Children Abandoned and Exploited". Acr.hrschool.org. 4 May 2005. Archived from the original on 30 September 2011. Retrieved 12 September 2011.
  25. ^ Nations, United. "PAKISTAN'S (STREET) CHILDREN".
  26. ^ "Street Children of Pakistan" (PDF). Islamabad, Pakistan: Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. p. 2 – via Royal Norwegian Embassy.
  27. ^ "What is child labour (IPEC)". ilo.org.
  28. ^ "Child Labour in Pakistan". Fair Trade Sports. Archived from the original on 2016-08-21. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
  29. ^ Nasrullah, Muazzam; Haqqi, Sobia; Cummings, Kristin (2009). "The epidemiological patterns of honour killing of women in Pakistan". European Journal of Public Health. 19 (2): 193–197. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckp021. PMID 19286837.
  30. ^ Zakar, Rubeena; Zakar, Muhammad; Mikolajczyk, Rafael; Kraemer, Alexander (2013). "Spousal Violence Against Women and Its Association With Women's Mental Health in Pakistan". Health Care for Women International. 34 (9): 795–813. doi:10.1080/07399332.2013.794462. PMID 23790086. S2CID 36059658.
  31. ^ "Fighting malnutrition in Pakistan with a helping hand from children abroad". UNICEF. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  32. ^ "Pakistan | Hunger Relief in Asia | Action Against Hunger". actionagainsthunger.org. 2011-07-07. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
  33. ^ "Nutrition country profiles: Pakistan summary". fao.org. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
  34. ^ "Malnutrition in Pakistan severest in region: report". thenews.com.pk. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
  35. ^ Publishing, Harvard Health. "Women and depression". Harvard Health. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
  36. ^ Rahman, A. (15 December 2003). "Mothers' mental health and infant growth: a case control study from Rawalpindi, Pakistan". Child: Care, Health and Development. 30 (1): 21–27. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2004.00382.x. PMID 14678308.
  37. ^ a b "Global Polio Eradication Initiative > Key countries". endpolio.com.pk. Retrieved 2019-12-23.
  38. ^ Walsh, Fergus (2015-09-25). "Nigeria reaches polio 'milestone' - BBC News". BBC News. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  39. ^ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2006). "Update on vaccine-derived polioviruses". MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 55 (40): 1093–7. PMID 17035927.
  40. ^ "Polio Cases Update 2020 | Across Pakistan's Provinces".
  41. ^ "Polio this week as of 07 January 2020". polioeradication.org. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  42. ^ "Polio this week as of 23 December 2019". polioeradication.org. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  43. ^ "Third Plenary Session". 1994 Proceedings: Eighty-Fifth Annual Convention of Rotary International. Taipei: Rotary International. 15 June 1994. p. 38. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
  44. ^ a b Hennessey, Karen A.; Marx, Arthur; Hafiz, Rehan; Ashgar, Humayun; Hadler, Stephen C.; Jafari, Hamid; Sutter, Roland W. (2000-07-01). "Widespread Paralytic Poliomyelitis in Pakistan: A Case-Control Study to Determine Risk Factors and Implications for Poliomyelitis Eradication". Journal of Infectious Diseases. 182 (1): 6–11. doi:10.1086/315675. ISSN 0022-1899. PMID 10882575.
  45. ^ Silver, Cary, ed. (May 2001). "Pakistani Rotarians help immunize 27 million children in NIDs". The Rotarian: 54. ISSN 0035-838X. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
  46. ^ Svea Closser (16 August 2010). Chasing Polio in Pakistan: Why the World's Largest Public Health Initiative May Fail. Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 40–41. ISBN 978-0826517098. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
  47. ^ "Polio True Stories". Country Programme Human Interest Stories. UNICEF. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
  48. ^ a b "Pakistan launches new polio vaccine, aims for 2016 wipeout". Yahoo News. Retrieved 2015-10-20.
  49. ^ Owais, Aatekah; Hanif, Beenish; Siddiqui, Amna R.; Agha, Ajmal; Zaidi, Anita KM (2011-04-17). "Does improving maternal knowledge of vaccines impact infant immunization rates? A community-based randomized-controlled trial in Karachi, Pakistan". BMC Public Health. 11 (1): 239. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-239. ISSN 1471-2458. PMC 3094245. PMID 21496343.
  50. ^ Aslam, Monazza; Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi (2012-10-01). "Parental Education and Child Health—Understanding the Pathways of Impact in Pakistan". World Development. 40 (10): 2014–2032. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.180.7540. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.05.007.
  51. ^ Peters, Susan Jeanne (2013-11-26). Education and Disability in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Routledge. ISBN 9781135811587.
  52. ^ "WHO | Poliomyelitis (Polio)". www.who.int. Archived from the original on August 18, 2014. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
  53. ^ a b Hyder, A A; Morrow, R H (2000-08-01). "Applying burden of disease methods in developing countries: a case study from Pakistan". American Journal of Public Health. 90 (8): 1235–1240. doi:10.2105/ajph.90.8.1235. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 1446325. PMID 10937003.
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