Poverty: Worst Form of Violence

Syeda Mahnoor Ali (BS-6^th, GPP)

 Poverty is a worldwide issue as described by the SDG1 devised by the UN. It is like slow poison, a curse infiltrated in the world. When people strive for the basic necessities of life, when they never overcome the state of hunger, when the fear or stress of where and how the next meal is going to come never leaves them alone. The poorest or most vulnerable people are almost always at greatest risk from environmental damage, climate change and competition for resources. The effects of unsustainable population hit the poorest first and hardest. Poverty is usually self-explanatory. However, the World Bank defines it as ‘living on less than $1.90 per day from $1.25 per day’.

In Pakistan, 24.3% of the population lived below the national poverty line in 2015, the proportion of employed population below $1.90 purchasing power parity a day in 2019 was 1.3%. For every 1,000 babies born in Pakistan in 2019, 67 die before their 5th birthday. Using the lower-middle-income poverty rate ($3.2 per day), the World Bank calculated that Pakistan's poverty rate was 39.3 per cent in 2020-21, 39.2 per cent in 2021-22, and 37.9 per cent in 2022-23

Majority of the Pakistani citizens are unable to fulfil their basic needs due to poverty and lack of resources. Hence, this can be further explained by the Maslow's hierarchy of needs that is a theory of motivation which states that five categories of human needs dictate an individual's behavior. Those needs are physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. No one can fulfil his/her esteem and self-actualization needs if they haven’t passed through the safety and psychological needs.

We can look into six categories to further define poverty. Situational, when poverty is caused due to certain disasters, destructions or situations. Generational, when people suffer from poverty for more than two generations. Relative, when people the income or standard of living of one group of people is better than the others. Absolute, when the people don’t even have basic necessities of life and their only concern is going through one day at once. Urban, that occurs in urban areas while rural, that occurs in rural areas.

Illiteracy, gender inequality, unemployment, conflicts and wars, climate change and natural disasters, lack of access to pure and clean water, lack of sanitation, lack of reserves and infrastructure, limited capacity of government and overpopulation are very serious interrelated causes of poverty. Unbelievably drastic increase in population has caused unavailability of labor, employment, safe water, education, food and homes, ultimately resulting in rural to urban migrations that have caused existence of urban slums, filthy and unsafe drainage systems.

Pakistan being a developing country, has a better urban system than rural. Explaining why majority of the rural population comes to urban cities to find employment and better social facilities to improve their standards of living. Educational, medicinal, employment and recreational facilities are nearly absent in rural areas of Pakistan. Hence, motivating rural to urban migration.

The current population of Pakistan is 225,533,376 as of Tuesday, August 3, 2021, based on World meter elaboration of the latest United Nations data. It is affecting Karachi more than any part of Pakistan. The metro area population of Karachi in 2020 was 16,094,000, a 2.24% increase from 2019.

However, there are many other factors affecting population growth other than the migration mentioned above. High birth rate and low death rate play an important role in population growth as well, ultimately affecting the economy of Pakistan. The excessive amount of resources in accordance with the population is what makes a country developed, stable and advanced however Pakistan has more mouths to feed than the food it acquires.

Many contradictions regarding population growth and use of economy/ resources have been seen in history. Taking china for instance, Chinese leader Mao Xi Dong quotes that “it’s the people not the things that are decisive”. He believed that the economy will improve itself, if each and every person works hard and roots out selfishness from his heart to work for his country. However, one the other hand it can be seen that china itself implemented a one child policy which resulted in preventing 400 million births and a drastic increase in economy. Hence, we can deduce that over population or population expansion is an enormous issue all over the world and not only in Pakistan.

"My statement that ‘development is the best contraceptive’ became widely known and oft quoted. 20 years later I am inclined to reverse this, and my position now is that ‘contraception is the best development’.”

– Karan Singh, Indian politician

The society suffers a lot as a whole and not just one individual as there are increased crimes, increased diseases, poor living conditions, mental stress, child labor, antisocial or physic personalities of individuals. Committing crimes has become easier due to population expansion and anonymity along with the decline in peoples’ living standards. Not only in Pakistan but in all the third world countries, we come across this disturbing fact that the rich and affluent have lesser amount of children than the poor and lacking. Illiteracy has increased resulting in the downfall of societies and low economy of the country. The country stays underdeveloped and is unable to provide for the citizens and the cycle keeps moving in loops. If the situation stays same or worsens, it is not far away when the poor will rage a war against the rich.

Poverty, if not completely eradicated can still be controlled by proper education, proper employment, population control schemes, interest free loans, raising the minimum wage, shelter homes for poor, gender equality, women empowerment and most importantly proper administrative measure if Pakistan wants to improve its economy and enter the privilege of being a developed and powerful country. Both economic and humanitarian measures should be taken in account while dealing with the administration of a country.