Pakistani Youth in the Clutches of Economic Crisis
Pakistan is the under developing country. Its population is estimated at 180 million. Out of this, 67% population said to comprise upon youth aged between 18 to 30 years. Such young nation is a blessing for any country on the surface of this earth. But unfortunately Pakistani youth are facing unemployment, lack of quality education and terrorism with no proper direction.
In mid of October 2014, a report was launched by Alif Ailaan, a leading Non Governmental Organization which is working on education in Pakistan accordingly to 25 million children are out of schools across the country due to socio-economic crisis who are prone to the militancy in the country. We have seen Pakistan facing economic ups and downs for many years. These crises are directly affecting Pakistani youth who have to decide the future of this country.
Couple of months backs, Dr. Hafeez Ahmed Pasha renowned Pakistani economists had launched the report on “Economy of Tomorrow” with the help of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) German political think, according to which around 4 million male youth are idle, neither working nor studying, almost 200,000 youth are unemployed, therefore poverty has been increased around 5 million people living below the poverty line and number of poor excess 70 million people in Pakistan. In order to combat the socio-economic issues of this huge bulge of youth, federal government has launched micro interest free loans of Rs 12,000 each for 250,000 youth in Pakistan which again is not enough to put the future of Pakistan on right track.
These howling crisis of Pakistani youth raise few questions that; If 25 million children not getting the education, what would they become in future as many poor families are now preferring to send their children to Maddarssas and for labor works in factories, what will be the outcome of this as we have already witnessed that most of the suicide bombers under the 16th years in recent terror attacks in Pakistan? Further, the other key driving factor of creating chaos in the country is the unemployment but the thing to ponder upon is that does the incumbent government which has launched 6 youth programs are sufficient to resolve the unemployment issue of youth? What is the validation to Prime Minister’s Youth loan scheme and would it be successful?
After the 18th amendment, youth ministry was devolved to the provinces but we are seeing that provincial governments are not paying any attention to address youth’s issues. Punjab has got the provincial youth policy whereas rests of the provinces have not any provincial youth policies yet. This shows the seriousness of provinces that how they are planning to address the youth issues at large.
If our political forces are not prioritizing the youth issues then it would be equal to breed criminals and terrorists in the country. Still everything is not lost and there is a ray of hope to recover these damages if provincial governments establish the task forces to prioritize the socio-economic and political issues of our country as it will not only boost the living standards of huge population but it will also help in fostering democracy in the country as economy plays a big role in democratic states and it is proved historically that weaker democracy is the result of weaker economy. Once the economic issues of youth in particular are addressed, this country will get more strengthened democracy.