‘A disaster in the making’: Pakistan’s population surges to 207.7 million
Birth control is still taboo in many areas
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Pamela Constable.
Pakistan’s population has exploded, making it the world’s fifth most-populous country.
- It now ranks behind only China, India, the United States and Indonesia.
- The population has grown 57 percent since the 1998 national census, reaching 207.7 million from preliminary results of the new census.
- The annual birthrate, while gradually declining, is still alarmingly high at 22 births per 1,000 people.
“The exploding population bomb has put the entire country’s future in jeopardy,” columnist Zahid Hussain wrote in the Dawn newspaper recently.
“This is a disaster in the making,” Hussain said.
Experts estimate that Pakistan’s population could double again by midcentury. This might put catastrophic pressures on water and sanitation systems, swamping health and education services, and leaving tens of millions of people jobless — prime recruits for criminal networks and violent Islamist groups.
- Religious taboos
- Political timidity
- Public ignorance, especially in rural areas
Only a third of married Pakistani women use any form of birth control, and the only family-planning method sanctioned by most Islamic clerics is spacing births by breast-feeding newborns for two years.
Shireen Sukhun is a district officer for the Population Welfare Department in Punjab province. Her mission is to persuade Pakistani families to have fewer children and offer the families access to contraceptive methods.
But there are obstacles.
“When we first opened this post, women were frightened to come, and some people asked why we were against increasing the ummah [Muslim masses],” Rehman said. “But we explained how the prophet taught that you should have a gap of 24 months between each child, and that you should consider the family’s resources when making decisions. Now we do not face such opposition.”
The population of Sukhun’s clients:
- Muslim women
- Mostly uneducated
- Some have been taught that God wants them to have many children
- Some have husbands who earn too little to feed a large family but keep wanting another child
“Islam does not contradict the idea of family planning, but it challenges the Western concept of birth control,” said Mufti Muhammad Israr, a religious scholar in Peshawar, the provincial capital. He said Islam allows “natural family planning” via breast-feeding but not “stopping the reproductive system permanently. The prophet Muhammad asked believers to marry and produce children.”
One pregnant housewife waiting to see a gynecologist in Mardan had a small child on her lap and a 5-year-old girl by her side. All looked weak and malnourished.
“My husband doesn’t care about my health or the health of our children. He can barely support us, but he wants more,” said Zarina Bibi, 34. She said that a doctor had advised her to take a break from childbirth for several years but that she had no choice. “My husband doesn’t want birth control.”
Upwardly mobile urban communities are more open to such perspectives than rural areas, where two-thirds of all Pakistanis live. In village life, the influences of traditional culture and Islamic teachings are stronger, and the reach of public media campaigns about baby spacing is much more limited.
Attempts to open rural family welfare offices are often met with community suspicion and political opposition, but health officials say more mothers are asking about birth control. The remaining major taboo, they said, is permanent contraceptive practices such as vasectomies or tubal ligations.
