Speakers at a press briefing informed that the exponential rise in the country’s population is not only the country’s biggest problem but also a biggest scandal. Millions of rupees have been devoured but it continues to rise exponentially like a nuclear bomb imploding within the country. Sindh fairly lagged behind the rest of the country in devising a proficient population policy. These views were express by experts at a press briefing held to mark World Population Day 2014 at Karachi Press Club. The speakers includes Dr. Sher Shah Syed, Renowned Gynaecologists, Dr. Sajjad Siddiqui of UNFPA, Dr. Mirza Ali Azhar of PMA and Mahnaz Rahman of Aurat Foundation.
They informed that family planning enabled parents to focus on the education of their children. In the West, family planning is not imposed via coercive methods but through creating awareness among the people. He further said that Pakistan had a large population of 190 million people but they had no future when basic necessities such as potable water, sanitation, education and health could not be provided to them. He called on the media and civil society to play a role in creating awareness and consciousness among such issues.
Mahnaz Rahman of Aurat Foundation’s pointed out that the issue of gender equality also impacted population planning since Pakistan was an innately patriarchal society. She highlighted the need for a census, which, she said, would help the government in devising its strategy for population control. She said since Prince Karim Aga Khan had emphasised that every family in the Ismaili community should have a nurse and consequently the Aga Khan University was producing more nurses than doctors. In fact nurses are more important in the labour room.
Dr. Sajjad Siddiqui pointed out that there was no population policy in Sindh and the entire budget was consumed in salaries. This is not the case in Punjab which had a policy for population control.