Perspective - Page 5

Insights From the 2023 Census Report

The 2023 Census conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics released its complete report in July 2024 indicates that the total population of Pakistan is 240 million out of which the population of children under 18 is 112 Million (47% of the total population). Children Population (under 18) Population under 18 Total Male Female Transgender Pakistan 112,472,700 58,099,978 54,370,121 2,601…

Juvenile Offenders in Punjab

The total number of convicted and undertrial juveniles imprisoned in various borstal institutes and jails of Punjab province was 645 as on 15 March 2022 (Prisons Department, Govt. of Punjab). Out of the total number of juvenile offenders, 81% (523) juveniles were on trial (under trial) and 19% were convicted…

Grace Marks by Sindh Government

In a move as surprising as it is contentious, the Sindh provincial…

deficiencies in Pakistan's education system

The Impact of Pakistan’s Education System

What PM Shehbaz Sharif blurted out recently isn’t quite a national secret.…

Abandoned Newborns

Earlier this month, a newborn baby was found abandoned in a garbage bin in Lahore’s Allama Iqbal Town. Police have been informed, and legal proceedings are expected, though the baby’s condition remains undisclosed. For a society that claims reverence for life, the image of a newborn discarded among refuse should…

HIV Negligence

Medical negligence in Pakistan is often discussed in the abstract — as a system failure, a resource constraint or an unfortunate by-product of poverty. But when nearly 4,000 children in Sindh are living with HIV, many of them infected not at birth or through personal behaviour but in healthcare facilities meant…

Custody Without Protection

The reported gang rape of a minor girl in Jacobabad by policemen in custody is a failure of procedure that demands serious institutional reckoning. Furthermore, the subsequent arrest of six policemen is being presented as proof that the system works. It is not. Accountability that begins and ends with junior…

Unlearning Old Ways

PAKISTAN’s education system has struggled to evolve beyond traditional patterns where reproduction is prioritised over the application of knowledge and skills. Thinkers such as John Dewey and Paulo Freire have long argued that education should connect classrooms with lived realities, and be outcome-oriented. An Outcome-Based Education system (OBE) has gained…

The Horrors of AI

The year 2026 started on an alarming note regarding the use of artificial intelligence. One of the viral cases these days is Britain’s media regulator investigation into Elon Musk’s X over concerns its Grok AI chatbot was creating sexually intimate deepfake images in violation of its duty to protect people…

Stray Dogs, Unsafe Streets, and Forgotten Children

A few days ago, I watched a boy no older than 10 or 12 dragging a sack of garbage larger than his own body. He was doing what thousands of children across Pakistan do every day, collecting recyclable waste to earn a living. Suddenly, several street dogs began barking. Moments…

Recognising Child Marriage

A sessions court in Karachi last week found an adult, who had married a minor, guilty under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013, sentencing him to two years in prison alongside a Rs25,000 fine. The court, however, declared that convictions under the Act do not nullify the validity of…

Rising Divorce Drives Daily Child Visits

RAWALPINDI: With the close of 2025, a record and alarming increase has been witnessed in meetings between divorced parents and their separated children at the family facilitation centre of the Rawalpindi Judicial Complex. The rise, which continued throughout the year on a monthly basis, is primarily attributed to the growing…

Motorcycle Licences at 16 in Punjab: Mobility, Maturity and the Burden of Responsibility

The newly proposed initiative has opened a deeper debate about accountability, maturity, enforcement and whether the state is regulating reality or retreating from responsibility. LAHORE: In early December 2025, a province-wide traffic enforcement drive in Punjab created a controversy after police registered over 4,600 cases and arrested around 3,100 people in 72…

Pregnancy Without Protection: Pakistan’s Struggle with Population Growth and Maternal Health

35-year-old Gul Rukh Bibi still remembers the silence that followed the birth of her eighth child: there were no congratulations, no whispered prayers, no relatives arriving with sweets. Only the quiet certainty that her life was about to change. Her husband had warned her months earlier that another daughter would…