POVERTY, CHILDREN AND RURAL_URBAN INEQUALITIES IN PAKISTAN 

 

Multiple Dimension Approach: Evidence from Pakistan

Session A1: Wellbeing and Multidimensional Poverty Presentation: 1

WHO I AM ?My Name is Dr. Syed Jaffer Ali

I am Working as an Executive Director at Society for Community Development (SCD) for the last 2 years.

I am from Pakistan, and I am proud to be a Pakistani and work for global peace, Poverty Reduction and Child Protection

SCD Existence

Head Office: 21-B Jinnah Town Quetta

B-40 Al-Hilal Society Karachi

19- Abu Bakar Block Garden Town Lahore

299 Street 58 Sector I-8/2 Islamabad

Salar Lane Afzal Abad Old Bara Road Peshawar

94-A, Street 7 Al Quraish Society Phase 1 Multan

Khan Siddique Street Bakhma Ufone Tower

SCD Head Office: Quetta

Coordination Office: Islamabad

Regional Offices: Multan

Loralai

Provincial Offices: Lahore

Karachi

Peshawar

SCD Current Projects

• Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) (Que, Multan, KPK, Sindh)

• Legal Aid Program (Lhr, Khi & Que)

• Youth Empowerment Program (Que)

• Protection and Socio Economic Rehabilitation of Children and Adolescent

girls living and working on the street of urban slums of Quetta City

project. (Que)

• Helpline Project (Que) (Toll free no 0800-44433)

• Awareness & rehabilitation of drug addicts inside jails (Lhr, & Khi)

• Juvenile justice strengthen Program (Central jail Lhr & Que)

• Awareness raising program through documentaries(Que)

POVERTY, CHILDREN AND RURAL_URBAN INEQUALITIES IN PAKISTAN

Children in Pakistan are at Risk particularly children living in urban slums of country like Karachi, Quetta, Lahore, Peshawar and Rawalpindi Islamabad. Balochistan is the most vulnerable province of the country people of Balochistan are deprived form their basic fundamental rights. There are various ethnicities are living in Quetta, for decade target killing of different ethnic and religious minorities spoiled the life peace of city. Hindu, Christian and Afghan Refugees are facing hard time in Quetta.

Children of Afghan, Christian and Hindu communities are at risk, as their parents/guardians are not having proper jobs, household and infrastructure. They are living in such areas that are deprived form basic necessities of life such as water, sanitation, health and education, protection form anti-social agents, drug mafia and terrorists.

Pakistan is from one of the early signatories of United Nation Child Rights Convention (UNCRC) and ratified for its implementation but yet failed to legislate child friendly laws and policies nationally or provincial levels. After 18th Amendment child was subjected as a provincial level but unfortunately province failed for any kind of legislation for children.

Society for Community Development is a Community based organization that initiated imparting formal and non-formal education, psychosocial counseling, medical services, and formed community based protection mechanism to safeguard the life of children in vulnerable areas of Rural and Urban Slums, that impact positively on the life of children and women and also instill resilience in community to fight with these difficult circumstances.

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Despite a wide under-prioritization, the issue of child poverty has received increasing attention worldwide over the last decade. The acknowledgement in Pakistan that child-specific poverty measurement is crucial for poverty efforts directed towards children, and the current lack thereof, instigated the development of a Pakistan child poverty approach.

This paper provides a critical analysis of poverty measurement in Pakistan and argues for adopting a multidimensional methodological framework. By applying the Alkire & Foster’s methodology it provides multidimensional poverty estimates at the aggregate, provincial and district level and identifies the major drivers of poverty. This paper proposes a country-specific, multidimensional and outcome-based approach for the measurement of the incidence, depth and severity of child poverty.

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This paper employs the Alkire and Foster Measure, representative of province, Balochistan, Pakistan, and estimates the incidence of poverty. It presents empirical estimates showing a higher incidence of poverty in rural rather than urban areas and in Balochistan province than others. District level estimates of poverty are also presented showing that districts with a predominantly agricultural economic base are poorer than those with a diversified economic base (with relatively higher share of industry and services sector).

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The paper also identifies the major drivers of poverty. It is illustrated in this paper that the AFM guides policy makers to distribute resources among various districts and to prioritize spending within each district depending upon the level and nature of deprivation.

Child poverty refers to the phenomenon of children living in poverty. This applies to children that come from poor families or orphans being raised with limited, or in some cases absent, state resources. Children that fail to meet the minimum acceptable standard of living for the nation where that child lives are said to be poor. In developing countries these standards are lower and when combined with the increased number of orphans the effects are more extreme.

 According to the UNICEF "children living in poverty are those who experience deprivation of the material, spiritual and emotional resources needed to survive, develop and thrive, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, achieve their full potential or participate as full and equal members of society”.  

Child Poverty

Measuring Child PovertyThe easiest way to quantify child poverty is by setting an absolute or relative

monetary threshold. If a family does not earn above that threshold, the children of that family will be considered to live below the poverty line. Absolute poverty thresholds are fixed and generally only updated for price changes, whereas relative poverty thresholds are developed with reference to the actual income of the population and reflect changes in consumption. The absolute poverty threshold is the money needed to purchase a defined quantity of goods and services. Certain organizations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, use the absolute poverty threshold of US$1 a day to measure poverty in developing countries.

Europe and many other developed countries use a relative poverty threshold, typically 50% of the countries' average income. Relative poverty does not necessarily mean the child is lacking anything, but is more a reflection of inequality in society. Child poverty, when measured using relative thresholds, will only improve if low-income families benefit more from economic advances than well-off families.

Capability Approach and the Child Development

Recently, debate among philosophers and theorists on how to define and measure poverty stems from the emergence of the human capability approach, where poverty is defined by Hi Kos extent of freedoms that a person possesses. Amartya Sen, the creator of the capability approach, argues that there are five fundamental freedoms that should be available to all humans: political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security. He also suggests that they are all interconnected, where each freedom fosters and/or enhances the others.Additionally, the capability approach claims that development should be considered a process of expanding freedoms or removing the major sources of un freedom rather than a focus on narrower measurements such as growth of gross national product, per capita income, or industrialization. 

Prevalence

Of the estimated 2.2 billion children worldwide, about a billion, or every second child, live in poverty. Of the 1.9 billion children in developing nations, 640 million are without adequate shelter; 400 million are without access to safe water; 270 million have no access to health services. In 2003, 10.6 million children died before reaching the age of five, which is equivalent to the total child population of France, Germany, Greece, and Italy. 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation while 2.2 million die each year due to lack of immunizations.

The CDI in Africa is twice that of the world average, and South Asia also fares poorly in relation to the global performance. In contrast, the CDI in developed countries is one-ninth of the world CDI, indicating a clear distinction between developing and developed nations.

Cycle of Poverty

The cycle of poverty  is when a family remains in poverty over many successive generations. For this reason reducing child poverty has been a focus of almost all governments as a way to break this cycle. Improving the quality of education provided to the poor is seen by most as the best way to break this cycle. Improving the environment the child grows up in, ensuring access to health, providing financial incentives (either through benefit schemes or reducing taxes) and promoting family values have all been suggested as ways to break the cycle.

Boys and girls have equal rates of poverty through their childhoods but as women enter their teens and childbearing years the rates of poverty between the genders widens. Globally, women are far more impoverished than men and poor children are more likely to live in female-headed households. Attempts to combat the cycle of poverty, therefore, have often targeted mothers as a way to interrupt the negative patterns of poverty that affect the education, nutrition/health, and psychological/social outcomes for poor children.

Policy Implications

According to the Overseas Development Institute, greater visibility for children's rights issues is needed in donor policies and attempts should be made to emulate the success achieved using gender markers to develop gender-sensitive development policy. They believe major influential players in the children's rights community - the UNICEF, UNFPA and NGOs, such as Save the children, Plan International and World Vision - should do more to highlight the impact of mainstream macro-policies issues on children. The Overseas Development Institute further suggests that an international commission be established to address the impact of the 3-F crisis (food, financial and fuel) on children as a platform for dialogue and new initiatives.

Responses by governmentsWhile some governments have implemented programs to deal with street children, the

general solution involves placing the children into  orphanages, juvenile homes, or correctional institutions. Efforts have been made by various governments to support or partner with non-government organizations.

Public approaches to street childrenThere are four categories of how societies deal with street children: Correctional model, Rehabilitative

model, Outreach strategies, and Preventive approach.The Correctional model is primarily used by governments and the police. They view children as a public

nuisance and risk to security of the general public. The objective of this model would be to protect the public and help keep the kids away from a life of crime. The methods this model uses to keep the children away from the life of crime are the juvenile justice system and specific institutions.

The Rehabilitative model is supported by churches and NGOs. The view of this model is that street children are damaged and in need of help. The objective of this model is to rehabilitate children into mainstream society. The methods used to keep children from going back to the streets are education, drug detoxification programs, and providing children with a safe family-like environment.

The Outreach strategy is supported by street teachers, NGOs, and church organizations. This strategy views street children as oppressed individuals in need of support from their communities. The objective of the Outreach strategy is to empower the street children by providing outreach education and training to support children.

The Preventive approach is supported by NGOs, the coalition of street children, and lobbying governments. They view street children’s poor circumstances from negative social and economic forces. In order to help street children, this approach focuses on the problems that cause children to leave their homes for the street by targeting parents’ unemployment, poor housing campaign for children’s righ

NGO Responses

Non-government organizations employ a wide variety of strategies to address the needs and rights of children from Rural and Urban Slums of Pakistan. One example of NGO effort is "The Street Children‘s Day", launched by Jugend Eine Welt on January 31, 2009 to highlight the situation of street children. The "Street Children's Day" has been commemorated every year since its inception in 2009.

Street children differ in age, gender, ethnicity, social class and these children have had different experiences throughout their lifetimes. UNICEF differentiates between the different types of children living on the street in three different categories: candidates for the street (street children who work and hang out on the streets), children on the streets (children who work on the street but have a home to go to at night), and children of the street (children who live on the street without family support).

Suggestions

•Livelihood based educations can reduce and sustain the state of poverty among children from rural and urban slums of Pakistan.•Skill development courses •Legislation and implementation of polices.•Safety nets and shelter homes for street children•Proper implementation of UNCRC