Poverty in Pakistan

SameerAbdal Malik

Section H

Poverty is the lack of basic human needs, such as clean water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter, because of the incapability to afford them. This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution. Relative poverty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country, or compared to worldwide averages. Poverty in Pakistan is a growing concern, as it is a developing country.

Poverty is widespread in Pakistan and is particularly predominant in rural areas as compared to the Urban districts. Nearly 80 per cent of the country’s poor people, subsist in rural parts of the country.

The causes of poverty incorporate lack of education, poor access to health services, large family size, gender discrimination and vulnerability to environmental degradation and deterioration of the natural resource base.

The recent increase in the international prices of food commodities has had a considerable impact on Pakistan’s poor people. It is estimated that about 17 million people have coupled the ranks of the 60 million people who are food insecure and many more are at risk. About half of the country’s population lives in a condition of food insecurity.

The prevalence of poverty varies between pastoral and metropolitan areas, and from one province to the next. Poverty is widely and evenly distributed in the many mountainous parts of the country where communities are small, scattered and isolated, and where there are few major urban centers.

There may be differences on the precise measurement of poverty but it is widely believed that the incidence of poverty in Pakistan has increased during the decade of 1990s.

Poverty will never end unless there are real solutions to end it; solutions based on economic justice and political changes.

According to my perceptions and illustrations by journalists; ‘Poverty can only be catered via the full equality between men and women in public as well as private areas of life, a worldwide minimum wage of $20 per day and the end of child labor under the age of 16 with the creation of a subsidy for scholarship. Secondly by the guarantee of shelter, healthcare, education, food and drinking water as basic human rights that must be provided free to all. Thirdly a total redistribution of idle lands to landless farmers and the imposition of a 50% cap on arable land devoted to products for export per country, with the creation of a worldwide subsidy for organic agriculture.’