All posts by : Hudaibia Iftikhar

Educational institutions successfully managed to open their doors for students after six-month closure all over Pakistan including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa amid a steady decline in coronavirus cases.

Closed in March this year due to corona pandemic, most of the universities, colleges and some schools have been reopened from Sept to first of October with a set of SoPs issued by ministry of health in coordination with the education ministry.

As per SoPs, wearing masks & use of sanitizer for teachers and students is mandatory while students’ strength must be cut to half per classroom who would be attending classes in two shifts or groups on alternate days.

The prolonged closure of educational institutes has own demerits posing some unprecedented challenges to the teachers as well as students.

Teachers and students alike were seen struggling with online classes often faced with slow internet streams and lack of knowledge regarding modern techniques involving e-learning which has affected the studies.

With reopening of the educational institutes, private schools are worried about the completion of syllabus in different disciplines as seven months of the current academic year have already lapsed with minimum online classes.

Ms. Bakhtawar, a teacher at IIUI (International Islamic University Islamabad, Nowshera campus) said “There is huge difference between pre and post Covid19 situation. The syllabus is still not completed and students have to cover a lot of chapters that are pending due to closure of educational institutes for seven months.”

Online classes have own problems & difficulties to overcome specially availability of internet.

The students living in marginalised regions were facing issues of lack of high bandwidth and strong internet connection which are essential for online courses thus failed to catch up with their virtual classmates in the cities.

Others who properly attended the online classes during lockdown are also not satisfied with the e- studies.

One of the ninth standard students at Armour Public School Nowshera, Zunaira Ahmad expressing her opinion about the online studies said “Due to online classes teachers could not cover most of the syllabus and now we students are confused how to finish the remaining course before next academic year.”

Switching from traditional classroom to virtual classroom had made the learning experience entirely different for students making it difficult for them to adapt to the new method of getting education.

Wearing mask is another challenge for majority of the students not familiar with it thus wearing a mask for over six hours makes it difficult to breath.

A sixth grade student, Bushra Ahmad complaint “I cannot focus in the classroom as I face breathing problems due to mask causing headache and muscle pain around the ears, therefore i used to touch mask and pull it down several times to get enough air to breath in and relax my ears”.

The other challenges & problems include increase in transport fares, psychological and behavioral changes, traumatic condition after lockdown, managing medical wellbeing of the students as well as teaching staff etc.

A coordinated effort on the part of teaching staff, management of the schools, health departments and parents would be pivotal in overcoming post Covid challenges and inducing interests in students for studies actively.

Under the latest statistics, Pakistan becomes the fifth largest nations among the world and with its population increased from 40 million to 220 million in the last 73 years. The last census that took place in 2017 had a recorded population of 207 million while the current population under the 2017 census is recorded to be 221 million which is equivalent to 2.83% of the total world population based on the World-meter elaboration of the latest United Nations Data.

The United Nations reported that Pakistan’s population will expectedly rise to 400 million people by 2050 almost doubling the present number, making Pakistan the third most populous country of the world. The negative consequences of the large population will significantly worsen with the anticipated population increase.

The known saying of the American writer and professor, Sir Isaac Asimov, about overpopulation is “Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It does not matter if someone dies.”

Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest predicament facing us. If we have a discussion of the major problems facing Pakistan nowadays like poverty, unemployment, socio economic problems etc. overpopulation is the main contributors to all issues which is the cause of concern in today’s world. The major factors responsible for overpopulation in Pakistan are early marriages, high fertility rates, preference of a son, religious constraints etc.

Let’s unfurl some of the major challenges the country is facing due to overpopulation,

• Pakistan has plenty of problems these days and unemployment is one of them. The people of Pakistan are considered highly talented and hardworking in the world but the engineers, doctors, scientists, accountants, technicians of Pakistan travel to foreign countries to earn their livelihood because the population is highly increased due to which the competition of job is quite high and all the people cannot get their due rights straightforwardly which cause numerous problems for the countrymen of Pakistan.

• Poverty is believed to be the leading cause of overpopulation. Since there is a gulf of a difference between the birth and the death rates, more people are being born than the ones dying which itself is the leading to the overpopulation of the country.

• Exhaustion of natural resources is also a factor contributing to overpopulation. It is the unequal and unreserved use of resources. The country has a limited capacity to generate raw materials and therefore, each year, the natural resources shortfall. In developing countries, over population causes stern rivalries to control resources.

• Overpopulation is also associated with the negative environmental and economic outcomes ranging from the impacts of over-farming, deforestation, and water pollution to eutrophication and global warming. It leads to increased industrialization and increased use of automobiles which causes environmental pollution.

• One of many menace, overpopulation also leads to eco-degradation by increasing air, water, soil and noise pollution, unhygienic conditions, with deforestation leading to floods and soil erosion. Rapid increase in population is creating increased pressure on the infrastructure, economy, environment etc.

The growing population in Pakistan has caused us many problems in terms of social, economic, and environmental ways, it is not just the public of Pakistan, the country caters to the largest numbers of immigrants in the world- especially the afghan refugees who have unignorably contributed to an increase in the outburst of population within the country.

Concluding the talk, the Pakistani government needs to resort ways to control it: by providing better education, by raising awareness of family planning, and by various ways before an unbanked number of people over flow in the limited territory and resources.

The belief in the concept of social, economic, and political equality of the sexes (biologically identified as male and female) is labelled as feminism. Although the idea largely originated in the West, manifested worldwide and is represented by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests, but less knowledgeable society representatives and social activists complicate sex orientation view with gender, constructed on the role of a male or female in society. Like other humankind, Pakistan is not exceptional and faces the spring of feminism, women liberation, and rights.

Feminist history can be divided into three waves that occur in different period of 19th and 20th century in America. It includes the struggle to achieve the right to vote, equality and end discrimination which were referred to as the Women Liberation Movement. The goal of feminism is to challenge the systemic inequalities women face on a daily basis. However, recent research has proved that feminism has been associated with strong, forceful, and angry women, and our society continues to punish such forceful women.

There are borrowed ideas about feminism from abroad, but Islam has already offered maximum rights to the women since the past 1400 years. Islam teaches that men and women are equal before God. It grants women divinely sanctioned inheritance, property, social and marriage rights, including the right to reject the terms of a proposal and to initiate divorce.

Allah said in Quran: “O mankind! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that you may know one another”

The Holy Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H said in his last sermon: “Observe your duty to Allah in respect to the women, and treat them well”.

Also, looking at Constitution of Pakistan 1973, Article 25 guarantees that “All citizens are equal under law and re-entitled to equal protection of law”, Article 25(2) further states that “there shall be no discrimination on the basis of sexes alone”. Hence ensures the equality of women in its various articles and uplift the women’s status and protection of their rights.

Although Islam and the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan allocates equal rights to males and females and treats them uniformly but, still the phenomenon of feminism is being negatively injected in our culture primarily to abuse our societal values and norms. This is the borrowed idea from the west which is not applicable in the east especially in Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The concept is acceptable in terms of fundamental rights of women but the way the concept features are preached and defended within society is against our culture, values, and religion.

There are thousands of people who believe in equal rights, still, find “feminism” a word and movement that does not align with their personal beliefs or values. Practically, they provide the identical privilege to females until they find it crossing the limit of ethical standards and principles showing dominance and superior attitude towards males. Hence, classify the feminism theory contradictory to their opinions and tenets. Like the west, in the east people comprehend that we have already achieved a peak of equality for men and women in professional fields through open merit to participate and grow to the level of excellence.

Back in 2018, Aurat March was held in many cities across Pakistan to coincide with Internal Women’s Day on 8 March, displaying unrespectable slogans like: freedom over fear, mera jism meri marzi, khana khud garam karo etc. These projections damaged the image of real honorable women and supposed as propaganda to create conflict and distract the mentality of females and provoke negativity towards opposite sex. Thus, the feminism notion was misinterpreted countrywide.

Addressing real feminism is to raise voice by women for attaining fundamental rights, for example: if some women are not getting their rights from parents, or badly treated by men, not getting their proposed share in properties, they can raise voice according to law. She is encouraged to take khula if she finds it difficult to stay with a spouse. The basic purpose of feminism is to inform women about their Islamic and constitutional rights which they can use for getting privileges.

It is the need of the time to stick with eastern values and create Islamic and constitutional rights awareness among society to minimize any future conflicted incidents and save any misguidance.

Polio is a paralytic and highly infectious disease caused by human enterovirus called the poliovirus. It can interact in its host in two ways: causes minor infection with mild symptoms or infect the central nervous system, which may cause paralysis. It primarily affects children under five years age, by invading their nervous system and causing paralysis or even death.

According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) statistics, more than 1.5 million people worldwide die annually from polio disease that could easily be prevented by vaccinations. Analyzing the past few years data of Pakistan, there was a predictable increase or decrease in polio cases, eight were reported in 2017 while 12 cases were reported in 2018. However, a drastic increase was observed in year 2019, where the reported cases surged to 123. In 2020, 39 cases have been reported so far.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 26, 2020, suspended all anti polio activities, including house-to-house surveillance for next 6 months to avoid placing communities and frontline workers at risk due to corona pandemic. However, after four-month suspension, it has decided to recommence small scale polio vaccination activities from July 20 as the ban has resulted in a new wave of polio and other highly infectious diseases.

According to the data collected by World Health Organization, UNICEF, Gavi and the Sabin vaccine institute, the deferment of routine immunization services due to COVID19 is adversely impacting at least 68 countries and is likely to affect approximately 80 million children under the age of 1 living in these countries.

Amid surge in polio cases, Pakistan has also announced to restart country wide polio vaccination activities in different districts claiming to vaccinate almost 800,000 children. Also, a four-day anti polio campaign will begin in 11 districts of KP including Swabi, Swat, Buner, Shangla, Kohistan, Mansehra, Haripur, Mardan, and Nowshera, where almost 600,000 children will be vaccinated.

Suspension of polio campaign has put children at a significant risk of contracting poliovirus especially in high risk areas. Keeping in view the value of polio vaccine, it is very important to protect children from this crippling disease by building their immunity through proper vaccination.

Government currently is in a very precarious situation as children below five years have low immunity to disease and are more prone to virus contraction. Though, government is trying to bring strong safety measures before restarting anti-polio campaign at national level in order to satisfy the children guardians. Any contraction of corona during campaign will completely shatter parents’ confidence and effectively halting the drive.

The government need to evolve a fresh strategy to continue immunization drive while ensuring safety of staff, children and parents. The government should run training session under respective district administration to educate staff regarding precautionary steps to ensure vaccination without putting at risk the child or themselves. The staff should also be issued personal protective equipment and other necessary equipment to ensure their safety. While, it is very important to enforce lockdown to stop spread of corona virus, however, at the same time immunization against polio is also of paramount importance to safeguard our young generation. Therefore, there is a need for a unified cautious effort to ensure immunization against polio.

Any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age is referred to as child marriage also known as “early marriage” or ‘child brides”. More than half of girls from poor families in the developing world are married as children.

The issue of child marriage is very common throughout the entire world. According to the latest statistics of April 2020, level of child marriage has been found highest in sub-Saharan Africa, where 35% of young women were married before age 18, followed by south Asia, where nearly 30% were married before age 18. The lowest level of child marriage was found in Eastern Europe & Central Asia (12 percent) followed by Middle East and North Africa (17 percent) respectively.

Pakistan is among one of the nation which is facing the child marriage dilemma, almost one third of girls are married before they reach their puberty. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report regarding demographics of Child Marriage, 21 percent girls under the age of 18 and 3 percent of girls under the age of 15 gets married in Pakistan. Almost 15 percent of child brides give birth to babies before reaching the age of 18. Similarly, UNICEF reported 21% underage marriages across Pakistan.

The situation is even worse in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as women rights commission estimates that 74 percent of girls are married in the age of 18. The major reason of higher child marriage percentage in KP is due to conservative tribal and Pashtun customs, traditions and practices. Some people are of the view that Islamic religion urge them to tie the knot of daughters once they reach puberty. Females are also considered inferior gender to the male and are mostly married without their consent or will, hence, increasing child marriages instance.

Child marriage violates the fundamental human rights of children and leave a long-term adverse effect on child’s life. One of the major consequences of the child marriage is that it badly affects the health of the children. It increases the risk of sexual diseases, cervical cancer, malaria, death during child birth, premature birth of babies etc. Child marriage deny girls a bright future and put their lives in an unending dangerous cycle of oppression and harm.

According to the International Council of Research on Women (ICRW), women with low levels of education and underage marriage are at a higher risk of domestic violence than older and more educated women. According to the research, the girls who marry before reaching the age of 18 are 50 percent more likely to face physical and sexual violence from her partner throughout the entire life.

Psychology reveals that girls who marry under the age of 18 are likely to suffer from trauma and depression and it usually leads to divorce or suicide. For girls who don’t have mature bodies for safe sexual intercourse, unavoidable sexual relation with their husbands can also be traumatic with long term adverse physical and psychological effects.

Child marriage effectively ends a girl childhood, curtails her education, minimizes her economic opportunities, increases her risk of domestic violence and puts her at risk of early, frequent, very high-risk pregnancies.

In Pakistan, there are various causes of early or child marriages. The most common amongst all those reasons are lack of implementation of existing laws, tribal and feudal structure of society, lack of awareness within the public.

The existing laws of child marriages are child marriage restraint Act 1929, recently passed by senate for controlling child marriage. Also, Article-16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that the person must be at full age when married and that marriage should be entered into freely and with full consent.

Though, minimum require laws are present in Pakistan; there is a need to develop a mechanism for its strict implementation at government and judicial level to ensure control on child marriages. Moreover, there is also a need to conduct a massive awareness campaign to educate masses regarding harmful effect of child marriages.

“Climate change is a phenomenon that arises due to emissions of greenhouse gases from fuel combustion, deforestation, urbanization and industrialization, resulting in variation of solar energy, temperature and precipitation”.

Pakistan is one of the top countries facing the impact of climate change. The average temperature of Pakistan as projected by various environmentalists has increased in range of 1-3 degree centigrade in various regions of the country. This has led to abnormal melting of glaciers which in longer run may deprive Pakistan of its major water resource. The climate change impacts are seen in the form of floods, dry winters, storms, and extremely high or low temperature.

World health organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) has recorded that the damages done in Pakistan due to global warming includes droughts and extreme weather which are prevalent since 1980’s. As per WHO, July 2010 floods were due to global warming, which inflicted 9.5 million dollars loss to economy and effected 20 million people all across Pakistan.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the most affected province which faced the major brunt of 2010 floods causing wide range damages and significant causalities. Above 90% of deaths due to 2010 floods were from the province of KP. The environmental analyses results show that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as a whole experienced the climate change impact in terms of rise in mean temperature from 0.3 degree centigrade to 1.2 degree centigrade and average rainfall from 11mm to 15mm over thirty years span.

KP is divided into four agro-ecological zones based on climate, rainfall, agriculture, altitude and topography in the Environmental profile of KP.

Extreme climate conditions range throughout the different areas of the province. For example- the northern region of KP experiences enormously cold and snowy winters, with heavy rainfall and pleasant summers, whereas the northern parts of KP experiences less harsh winters and hotter summers. Chitral, the highest districts of KP experiences the lowest temperatures in winters. DI-Khan, the southern most district of KP, experiences milder winters and therefore is dominated by agriculture and rangelands due to optimum climate conditions for agriculture.

Climate change has greatly impact the agriculture sector of KP. Wheat has been most affected by the climate change as few areas in central valley and most parts of southern districts have completely stopped growing wheat due to less or no rain. It has been observed that the change in the pattern of rainfall has reduced the normal yield of various crops in different districts of KP.

Due to longer summers and higher temperatures, glaciers are melting at a higher rate. Spring seasons are favorable for freezing process of glaciers which protect them from rapid melting. However, due to higher temperatures and less duration of spring seasons, glaciers are not getting enough time to freeze and therefore, are melting at a higher rate in summers. There are more than 5000 glaciers in Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in which 33 Glacier’s lakes are melting rapidly due to rise in temperature. This can cause perilous Glacial Lake Outburst Flooding (GLOF) in the area. KP has faced catastrophic floods and drought in the recent years that have killed and displaced thousands of people and damaged wide spread infrastructure.

Changing weather patterns such as higher temperature and more rainfall can have serious impacts on flora, fauna. Higher temperature provides favorable environment to various bacteria species which cause various health issues. Recently in the year 2019, the dengue virus disease appeared and was amplified with increase in temperature. Moreover, flooding and droughts can cause shortage of portable drinking water.

Realizing the adverse impact, the government of KP launched an ambitious initiative of billion tree tsunami to reverse effect of global warming. Recently the project has been replicated by the center where country wide ten billion tree tsunami project has been initiated. Though, Pakistan is not among the major contributor to greenhouse gases emission, however, it is one of most effected country by global warming.

The government of KP has also decided the Formulation of Provincial Climate Change Policy to give recommendation and way forward on the issue of Climate Change and challenges to KP province. For this purpose, the project was launched titled “Establishment of Climate Change and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) Cell” under the provision Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Despite these initiatives KP still needs to take concrete steps to mitigate the impact of climate change. There is also a requirement of national policy on climate change in order to ensure requisite steps in time to meet its challenges.