MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Pakistan
Index
Pakistan's extremely high rate of population growth is
caused
by a falling death rate combined with a continuing high
birth
rate. In 1950 the mortality rate was twenty-seven per
1,000
population; by 1990 the rate had dropped to twelve
(estimated)
per 1,000. Yet throughout this period, the birth rate was
fortyfour per 1,000 population. On average, in 1990 each family
had
6.2 children, and only 11 percent of couples were
regularly
practicing contraception.
In 1952 the Family Planning Association of Pakistan, an
NGO,
initiated efforts to contain population growth. Three
years
later, the government began to fund the association and
noted the
need to reduce population growth in its First Five-Year
Plan
(1955-60). The government soon combined its population
planning
efforts in hospitals and clinics into a single program.
Thus
population planning was a dual effort led by the Family
Planning
Association and the public sector.
In the mid-1960s, the Ministry of Health initiated a
program
in which intrauterine devices (IUDs) were promoted.
Payments were
offered to hospitals and clinics as incentives, and
midwives were
trained to treat patients. The government was able to
attract
funding from many international donors, but the program
lost
support because the targets were overly ambitious and
because
doctors and clinics allegedly overreported their services
to
claim incentive payments.
The population planning program was suspended and
substantively reorganized after the fall of Mohammad Ayub
Khan's
government in 1969. In late December 1971, the population
was
estimated at 65.2 million. In an attempt to control the
population problem, the government introduced several new
programs. First, the Continuous Motivation System
Programme,
which employed young urban women to visit rural areas, was
initiated. In 1975 the Inundation Programme was added.
Based on
the premise that greater availability would increase use,
shopkeepers throughout the country stocked birth control
pills
and condoms. Both programs failed, however. The unmarried
urban
women had little understanding of the lives of the rural
women
they were to motivate, and shopkeepers kept the
contraceptives
out of sight because it was considered mannerless to
display them
in an obvious way.
Following Zia ul-Haq's coup d'état in 1977, government
population planning efforts were almost halted. In 1980
the
Population Division, formerly under the direction of a
minister
of state, was renamed the Population Welfare Division and
transferred to the Ministry of Planning and Economic
Development.
This agency was charged with the delivery of both family
planning
services and maternal and child health care. This
reorganized
structure corresponded with the new population planning
strategy,
which was based on a multifaceted community-based
"cafeteria"
approach, in cooperation with Family Welfare Centres
(essentially
clinics) and Reproductive Health Centres (mostly engaged
in
sterilizations). Community participation had finally
became a
cornerstone of the government's policy, and it was hoped
that
contraceptive use would rise dramatically. The population
by 1980
had exceeded 84 million.
In preparing the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1983-88), the
government projected a national population of 147 million
in the
year 2000 if the growth rate were to be a constant at 2.8
percent
per year, and of 134 million if the rate were to decline
to the
desired 2.1 percent per year by then. By the Seventh
Five-Year
Plan (1988-93) period, the multipronged approach initiated
in the
1980s had increased international donor assistance and had
begun
to enlist local NGOs. Efforts to improve maternal and
child
health were coupled with education campaigns. Because of
local
mores concerning modesty, the government avoided explicit
reference to contraceptive devices and instead focused its
public
education efforts on encouraging couples to limit their
family
size to two children.
The key to controlling population growth, according to
activists in the women's movement, lies in raising the
socioeconomic status of women. Until a woman's status is
determined by something other than her reproductive
capabilities,
and especially by the number of sons she bears, severe
impediments to lowering population growth rates will
persist.
Data as of April 1994
|
|