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Local Production Of Iron, Folic Acid Supplements May Curb Anaemia In 15m Pakistani Girls

ISLAMABAD: The local production of Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFAS) in adolescent doses could prevent around 15 million adolescent girls in Pakistan from suffering from iron deficiency anemia as ensuring sustainable access to these supplements could significantly reduce costs and lessen reliance on expensive imports, according to officials and nutrition experts. Iron deficiency anaemia is the leading cause…

Federal Health Minister Urges Action As Vaccination Refusals Hindering Polio Eradication

Federal Health Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal has expressed serious concern over vaccine refusals, stating that nearly 43,000 parents in Sindh — 42,000 of them in Karachi alone —have refused polio vaccination for their children, posing a major obstacle to the eradication efforts. He made these remarks while visiting the Provincial…

New Textbooks For Grade 1 To 5 To Be Delivered In Two Weeks

ISLAMABAD: The supply of newly developed textbooks for grade 1 to 5…

Children With Disabilities Showcase Talent At PNCA

Islamabad: The Directorate General of Special Education (DGSE), Ministry of Federal Education…

Enrolment Push

THE federal government has embarked upon the welcome initiative to enrol 25,000 out-of-school children in Islamabad within three months. With Pakistan home to roughly 26m out-of-school children, a serious effort to get them into classrooms is essential and long overdue. The campaign’s structure suggests that the authorities recognise the scale…

Normalising Abuse

There is something deeply wrong with how easily Pakistan has learned to absorb horrific news. Sahil, an organisation working towards developing an environment free from child abuse and neglect, has recently released figures revealing that 3,630 cases of child abuse were reported in 2025, which is an 8 percent rise…

Child Abuse Cases in Pakistan rise 8% to 3,630 in 2025: Sahil

A total of 3,630 child abuse cases were reported across Pakistan in 2025, according to new figures released by Sahil, which monitors violence against children and women. In a statement issued on Monday, the organisation said the cases had been reported in 81 different newspapers from across the four provinces,…

Reproductive Health Awareness

Parliament has done something this week that once seemed nearly impossible in Pakistan’s legislative culture. It passed a bill mandating reproductive health education in schools. The Federal Supervision of Curricula Amendment Bill, cleared by both houses and awaiting presidential assent, requires that students aged 14 and above in Islamabad’s educational…

Thalassaemia Testing

The National Assembly’s passage of the bill mandating premarital thalassaemia screening in Islamabad is a much-needed first step towards reducing the incidence of the potentially deadly blood disorder. The disorder, which is hereditary, has an unusually high rate of incidence in countries such as Pakistan and areas with large South…

Children at risk

Pakistan has once again found itself in the middle of a rapidly expanding public health challenge: childhood obesity. The latest findings from the World Obesity Atlas 2026 should ideally serve as a wakeup call for our health authorities. Since 2010, the prevalence of obesity among Pakistani children and adolescents has…

Education for Prosperity

Pakistan possesses a demographic profile that could either become its greatest asset or its most destabilising liability. Unfortunately, we are headed in the wrong direction. To understand the scale of the challenge, it is important to recognise the extent of Pakistan’s educational underinvestment. Unesco has advised a minimum of 4-6…

Starved Childhoods

EVERY day, in homes across Pakistan, millions of children are quietly being left behind. Not by flood or famine, earthquake or epidemic, but by the slow, invisible erosion of chronic undernutrition. The crisis unfolding concerns the 40 percent of Pakistani children under five who are stunted, the nearly 10m children…

Public Financing in Education 2025-26

Education remains a crucial driver of human development and economic growth in Pakistan. Investments in learning strengthen human capital, enhance productivity, and expand opportunities for innovation and inclusive progress. Article 25-A of the Constitution guarantees free and compulsory education for all children aged five to sixteen, while Article 37(b) commits…

Counting Children

FIRST the good news: on Feb 21, 2026, Sindh carried out its first real-time digital birth registrations of four newborns at public teaching hospitals — a long-awaited move towards reducing bureaucracy and improving archaic processes. The first paperless registrations were accomplished under a digital framework that integrated these hospitals with Nadra’s…

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