Pakistan

Poverty rates in Pakistan continue to rise as environmental abuse and a corrupted military-based government are not helping the cause. The streets of major Pakistani cities are filled with more than 1.2 million homeless children each day.

The poverty line (minimum income needed for a suitable life habit) in Pakistan is at a mere U.S. $2/day. Of the 40 million people who fall below this line, 30 million of them can be found in rural areas. Only 6 out of 100 civilians own a phone while only 1 out of 100 has access to the internet.

To this day, there still exists an active feudal system in Pakistan. The rich own thousands of acres of land, while the poor own nothing. Thus the landowners in Pakistan are able to employ a system of serfdom and exploit the poor population for their labor. Feudalism and serfdom have not existed in Europe for over a hundred years.

Pakistan continues to be a country where the term “freedom” is highly abused and sorely disregarded. Freedom of speech and expression are constantly violated and suppressed. Freedom of religion is unheard of as Hindus continue to be discriminated against along with other religious minorities. Many seem to believe that the government’s laws are more concerned with national security, crime, and domestic peace. However, the government is trying to establish a domestic prosperity without properly establishing the basic civil rights of its citizens.

To this day, Pakistan remains infested with drug lords and ravaged by sectarian militant violence which has cost the lives of countless innocent bystanders. Human trafficking, discrimination against women and religious minorities, and debt slavery continue to persist within the country while the government seems to simply ignore most of these civil injustices.

Perhaps the most shocking information is that violations of human rights do not only come from the drug lords and the militants, they come from the government itself. A violent and uncontrollable government continues to use excessive force to enforce its control and “law” over its citizens. Excessive force includes inhumane actions such as rape and torture.

Azad Kashmir, known as Free Kashmir in English, does not even come close to living up to its name. It remains occupied by the Pakistan military who instead of being protectors from violence have become enforcers of political compliance through abuse and control. Kashmir remains dotted with “independent” militant groups throughout, which are all alleged to still have close interactions with the military. The war for this territory has turned into nothing more than a source of fear and abuse for the residents of this region.

The practice of torture is well known throughout this region as it is conducted frequently by the government for various reasons ranging from suspicion of terrorist involvement all the way down to a simple involvement with an innocent hunger strike supporting a local bus service.

Under the rule of President General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan is marred by the constant violations of the basic human rights of its citizens. President Musharraf came to power through violence and continues to rule by violence. The government and military is known for its “disappearances,” torture, and arbitrary detention in their fight against both terrorism and internal political conflict.

Since 1986, Pakistan has experienced a steady increase in its HIV/AIDS cases. To this date, the estimated number of cases is around 80,000 victims. Many cases of HIV are going unreported due to cultural taboos about sex along with victims’ fears of discrimination.

Pakistan is thought by many to be a “ticking time bomb” for an HIV epidemic. It is not yet a dominant virus among the adult population; however, there remains a low level of awareness and education about HIV/AIDS, a virus that is slowly increasing in Pakistan. Recently, new reports show that changing trends in HIV signify a change from a low prevalence epidemic to a concentrated one.

Most people affected with AIDS are between the ages of 20-44, with males outnumbering females 7 to 1. The majority of infection comes through sexual transmission, drug injection users, and contaminated blood sources. Analysts believe that Pakistani women are at a higher risk for HIV infection due to socioeconomic factors. They suffer from gender discrimination and lack of power in the Pakistani culture.

Long term goals are to fight off the AIDS epidemic through prevention and awareness. The Pakistani government will continue to increase its involvement with the education and the spread of awareness of AIDS. Efforts are being made to involve more NGOs and private sectors in program planning and managements.

Infant and adolescent death rates remain high at around 100 deaths per 1,000 live births. Only about one half of the children receive proper immunization and vaccinations, while one third of the children are believed to be suffering from malnutrition.

Such diseases as tuberculosis and malaria are still prevalent in Pakistan, especially among the children.

Natural resources are limited in Pakistan due to the dry climate and mountainous terrain. With the ever increasing population size, this problem is growing larger. Around 50 percent of Pakistan’s energy consumption is in the form of natural gas. Due to the lack of refining potentials within the country, Pakistan is highly dependent on imported petroleum; which means rising oil prices are taking their toll on the nation.

Industrial and agricultural pollutants along with the buildup of sewage have led to a poor water infrastructure in Pakistan. This has caused around 15% of the nation to not have access to pure water. Over 80% of Pakistan’s diseases can be somehow linked to its infested water supply.

Pakistan is home to the second highest rate of deforestation in the world. Due to its lack of other natural resources, Pakistan has relied heavily on firewood which has led to a devastating effect on the environment. Deforestation along with poor care of the land has led to soil erosion and other similar problems that have severely hurt crop output and in return is hurting the local communities in Pakistan.

During the 1990s, Pakistan was among the top 50 nations for air pollution through carbon dioxide emissions. The low quality fuels supplied in Pakistan along with the increasing use of motor vehicles have helped to rocket it into the charts.

Left unchanged, the environmental issues in Pakistan will slowly deplete the country away. It will not only continue to affect the health of the population, but it will also affect the economy and prosperity of the entire nation.

Out of the 165,803,560 people who reside in Pakistan, only about half of them are literate, compared to America where 99% of the population is literate. Gender discrimination within the Pakistani culture is reflected onto its literacy rates as literate men outnumber literate woman 63% to 36%. Generally, Pakistani culture sees the woman as purely a housewife while the man is the sole breadwinner for the household.

The Pakistani educational system is not much different from the U.S. It consists of primary schooling, middle schooling, and high schooling, followed by a higher secondary schooling (which is equivalent to a college education in the U.S.). Upon completion of bachelor’s degree, Pakistani students can pursue a M.D. which typically takes 1.5 years or a Ph.D. which takes no less than 3-5 years. Pakistani universities graduate 1.2 million students each year.

There is also an alternate education system that is not run by the state. It usually draws students from poorer Pakistani families as they tend to be more traditionally tied to Islamic culture. This education is known as the system of Madrassahs which is mainly an Islamic school, but recently has started to add the sciences, world history, and more to its curriculum. The schooling can be divided in two, where the first half is based on the memorization of the Qur’an while the second half is where most of the actual schooling occurs. It is estimated that more than 1.5 million children attend traditional madrassahs. Recently, state run educational systems have been under a lot of scrutiny for poor management and education. Thus many have turned to madrassahs as an alternative to the secular state run schools. However, there are also those who take advantage of the system of madrassahs in which they use the religious base to teach radical views against India in Kashmir. The “Holy Jihad” in Afghanistan has also set a prime example for the radicalization of the madrassahs system.

SOS Childrens Villages of Pakistan - SOS Children's Villages is a private social welfare organization which offers orphaned and abandoned children a new and permanent home. The SOS Children's Village idea is an important milestone in the development of a modern approach to the welfare of orphans.

The Citizens Foundation - TCF is a professionally managed, not-for-profit organization, established in August 1995 and formally incorporated in September 1996. The organization was set up by a group of citizens, concerned by the dismal state of education in Pakistan. TCF runs its network of well-managed, purpose-built schools in urban slums and rural areas across Pakistan and serves all persons and communities on a completely non-discriminatory basis.

Citizens-Police Liaison Committee - The Center for Sustainable Development Actions (CSDA) is an independent, non-political, non-profit and non-governmental organization (Societies Registration Act 1860) committed for positive social and economic change in Pakistan. The overall goal of CSDA is to promote sustainable development actions in underdeveloped areas of Pakistan. The aim of the center is to address the development issues related to gender, environment and poverty in the backward and socio-economically depressed areas of Pakistan.

Pakistan Relief - Pakistan Relief volunteers are providing relief services in Bazargaii and Jassol these days and are in continuous search of areas where help is needed most. Donations and volunteers are both desperately needed.

Kashmir International Relief Fund – Kashmir International Relief Fund (KIRF) is the largest charity and NGO in Kashmir – the region most affected by the devastating earthquake on 8th October 2005. As a registered UK charity, KIRF has been at the forefront of providing humanitarian relief, welfare and development to the people of Kashmir since 1992. KIRF has a long understanding and capability to deal with the human tragedy resulting from natural or political disasters. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by this unprecedented earthquake in the region. KIRF will use all its efforts to help the emergency relief effort in the short term and also to lead the way in the long-term development effort that will be necessary in the weeks, months and years to come. KIRF will work with the Kashmiri, Pakistani and international communities globally to help rebuild and rehabilitate the disaster area. KIRF has and will always work in Kashmir – especially when the world’s attention turns elsewhere.

Amnesty International - Amnesty International's vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. In pursuit of this vision, AI's mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights. AI's national sections and local volunteer groups are primarily responsible for funding the movement.

WWF Pakistan - Pakistan is a naturally rich country. It boasts some of the world's highest mountains as well as a coastline. It supports an amazing range of ecosystems and, thus, life forms. This beauty is becoming lost in the haze of pollution, the bareness of deforestation and the dryness of erosion. WWF - P is looking to increase the amount of volunteers (technical and non technical) to carry on our conservation work.

Promoting Quality Education for all - Our major task is to establish 10 standard Primary Schools in Tribal area of Peshawar, Pakistan. Our resources are limited and we need some voluteers to achieve this challenging task. We need help in teachers training, curriculum selection, arranging co-curricular activities and preparing teaching aids.

Responsible Volunteering - people and places has evolved from the recognition that many volunteer recruitment organisations are out of step with the needs of local communities and volunteers. Ours is a truly different approach - to specifically match volunteers and projects. Our starting point for every project is the local community - their needs and those of the project are paramount. Only with a comprehensive understanding and respect for the community and the project will people and places match volunteers to placements.