Report highlights damning state of Pakistan’s women
IN THE run-up to this fiscal year’s budget, Pakistan’s print, electronic and social media has been drowning in economic data. However, almost no one has paid attention to the underlying social indicators that reflect what ails Pakistan’s economy and its society at large.
The 2017-18 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) offers a glimpse into key social indicators and can explain why Pakistan is consistently falling behind the rest of the world. According to this survey, Pakistan’s women are undereducated, physically and mentally abused and lack access to information and financial services.
According to the survey data, almost 49.2 per cent of ever-married women aged 15-49 had no education whatsoever – the figure is 25.4 per cent for men. In rural areas, the figure rises to nearly 61.6 per cent – 33.3 per cent for men.
Only 13.1 per cent of women in Pakistan have attained an education level of Class 11 or higher – 18.9 per cent for men; 21.5 per cent of women who have had no schooling or studied between Class 1-9 can read a whole sentence – 24 per cent for men.
Half of the women surveyed were illiterate, which is evidence on its own that the state has failed its citizens.
Based on these indicators, women in Pakistan have a strong disadvantage in terms of access to employment and information. This has dire consequences not only for women themselves, but for their children and society at large.
Literacy and violence
Many in Pakistan claim that social media and the internet have changed the country, but according to the data, the information age has yet to reach almost 9 in 10 women in Pakistan. The PDHS data shows that 29.8 per cent of men surveyed have ever used the internet, while only 12.6 per cent of women reported to have ever used the internet.
High illiteracy means that women cannot inform themselves, and the PDHS shows that only 5.1 per cent of women read a newspaper at least once a week, compared to 27.1 per cent of men.
Only 6 per cent of women have and use a bank account, compared to 31.6 per cent of men. At least 92.7 per cent of men own a mobile phone, while only 39.2 per cent of women said that they own a mobile phone.
Lack of education and access to information leads to a lack of employment opportunities. Only 17.3 per cent of women said that they were currently employed – 96.1 per cent for men, while an astounding 80 per cent of women said they had not been employed in the last 12 months preceding the survey – 2.3 per cent for men.
The data also highlights that even when women attain education, they tend to not work.
According to the PDHS, 62.5 per cent of women in the highest wealth quintile have attained an education level of Class 10 or higher. However, t he employment rate is only 11.5 per cent among these wealthy women, meaning t hat t he vast majorit y of highly educated women are not putting their education to productive use and are choosing to stay at home.
Poorly educated and wit h litt le to no prospects of employment, it is a lso ver y common for Pakistani women to experience physica l v iolence.
The data shows that 27.6 per cent of women have experienced physical violence since age 15. Within this group, 14.6 per cent reported experiencing physical violence often or sometimes in the past 12 months.
Violence committed by husbands is the most common form of violence women face, and 23.7 per cent of women reported experiencing physical or sexual violence from their spouse.
These women have no choice but to bear this violence, and 56.4 per cent of women have never sought help and never told anyone about the violence that they have faced.
Pakistan has a fertility rate of 3.6 births per woman, one of the highest in the world. Poorly educated, facing physical and sexual violence and with little to no access to information, Pakistan’s women are being asked to raise a new generation in a society that is already facing major resource constraints.
According to the PDHS, 38 per cent of children under the age of five in Pakistan are stunted and 23 per cent of children under the age of five are underweight. This means that a significant proportion of Pakistan’s future generations are growing up with a high risk of mental and physical disability.
According to the 2017 census, there are over 101 million women in Pakistan, making up almost 49 per cent of the country’s population. With over a 100 million Pakistani citizens facing an educational, employment, financial, physical, and emotional crisis, is it any surprise that the country continues to fall behind the rest of the world?
It is preposterous that, faced with such a crisis, Pakistan’s elite wants to discuss and debate whether this International Monetary Fund bailout will be the last one ever, whether the country needs a commission to investigate the debt taken on in the last decade or whether a quote is attributed to Gibran or Tagore.
A volcano is bubbling under the surface and it will burst forth sooner or later. If Pakistan does not get its act together, this nuclear-armed country will find itself in a crisis unlike any faced by a nation-state in the twenty-first century.