Pakistan's missing women

By YesPakistan.com Staff Writer

The treatment of women around the world is problematic at best and deadly at worst. In South Asia, the issue has taken a new dimension: women are the unwanted as children and adults and this is clearly reflected in population statistics as well as other indicators of women's well-being. In addition, the worst example in all of South Asia can be found in Pakistan.

South Asia is the only part of the world where men outnumber women in total population. The global ratio of females to males is 106 to 100 according to the report Human Development in South Asia 1997. However, in South Asia it is only 94 to 100. This is the complete opposite of worldwide biological trends, since generally speaking, women tend to outlive men if both sexes receive similar nutritional and health care.

But South Asia is not only worse off in comparison to industrialized countries. Even in comparison to other parts of the developing world, South Asia's treatment of women is abysmal. One notable example is in the Middle East, which in the West, has traditionally been considered the home of some of the worst oppression of women.

About 74 million women are missing in South Asia. They are the victims of social and economic neglect from the cradle to the grave.

It starts even before birth. There is an overwhelming preference for the male child in South Asia. Although this is a phenomenon found all over the world, it is carried to an extreme in South Asian
societies. This becomes clear as a baby girl grows up. If she grows up. In Pakistan, 12 percent more girls than boys between the ages of one and four die

Even when it comes to the basics of survival, such as food, health care, nutrition and education, boys are preferred over girls. For example, in Bangladesh and India, girls receive only 88 percent of the required nutritional intake compared to boys. In rural Punjab in India, 21 percent of girls in low-income families suffer severe malnutrition, compared with three percent of boys in the same families.

As the baby girl ages, she becomes part of South Asian population that bears the greatest burden of human deprivation in the region. Like in other low-income areas of the world, poverty in South Asia has a woman's face.

Violence is also a part of life for many, many South Asian women. Examples include infanticide, child abuse, rape, dowry deaths and pyre-burning.

And the cycle of deprivation does not end when she is in as vulnerable and difficult a situation as pregnancy. Close to 85 percent of pregnant women in South Asia suffer from anemia. This leads to very high rates of maternal mortality. Fewer than one-third of the total births in South Asia are attended by a qualified, trained health attendant

Generally speaking, the neglect of women's basic needs is connected to their perceived low status in society.

It is important to note that while these problems are part of a widespread phenomenon across South Asia, there are some important differences among the countries of the region.

In particular, Pakistan, ranks lowest in the region in most gender-related human development indicators. The statistics are disturbing and chilling: the country's female literacy rate is only 23 percent; its combined female enrolment is 16 percent; its maternal mortality rate is as high as 340 per 100,000 live births; women's share of top administrative and managerial jobs a mere three percent and in the national parliament, a mere 1.6 percent.

These statistics are a damning indictment of Pakistan's treatment of women. It is a shame that not only is South Asia the worst place in the world for women in many ways, but that Pakistan seems to be leading the way in this crime called the mistreatment of women. The next generation of Pakistani and South Asian women cannot go missing as their sisters of the previous generation have.

Date/Time Last Modified: 6/18/2002 8:06:29 AM

Readers' Comment

seemeen: 9/30/2006 11:56:12 PM
The article is v informative as wel as depressing for me after knowing the situation of women specially in pakistan.These type of articles r good sources for awareness among common masses.

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