KARACHI: At least 24% of women in Pakistan, aged 20 to 24, were married before turning 18, a United Nations (UN) report revealed on Friday.
The report, titled "Improving Children's Lives: Transforming the Future" and published by Unicef, marks 25 years since the General Assembly of the UN adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
PHOTO: UN REPORT
According to the report, girls from poor families in Pakistan were more likely to get married before the age of 18 than those in richer families (46% as compared to 18%).
Also, 29% of women, aged 20 to 24, living in rural areas of the country got married before the age of 18 compared to 16% of those living in urban areas.
In a broader context, the report stated that one in five girls (18%) in South Asia got married before the age of 15, while almost half of all girls in South Asia (46%) marry before the age of 18.
Child health
According to the UN report, a baby dies about every three minutes in Pakistan, while more than 350,000 children in Pakistan die before the age of five, of them around 20% die because of pneumonia.
The neonatal mortality (death in the first 28 days in life) rate was 42 per 1,000 live births in 2012, with 202,000 neonatal deaths in the year.
PHOTO: UN REPORT
The report also revealed child sex ratio in Pakistan for children aged 0 to 4 is 985 girls per every 1,000 boys, sourcing Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2012-2013.
Another interesting fact that the report pointed out was that only about half of the births were attended by skilled health staff during the period 2007-2012 (49%).
"Pakistan has the lowest birth registration rate in the region, with 73% of its children under five not being registered," the report further stated.
Stunting in children
The detailed report also included figures on stunting in children under the age of five, stating that 43% children in Pakistan in 2010 had stunted growth as compared to 55% in 1990, with 1.1% estimated annual rate of reduction.
With reference to mother's level of formal education and stunted growth in children, the data showed 20% of mothers who received secondary education and above have children with stunted growth, while the percentage rises to 50% for mothers who had received no education.
PHOTO: UN REPORT
In the report, stunting among children was also compared based on whether they lived in rural or urban areas. Around 50% of the children in rural areas had stunted growth as compared to 35% in urban areas.
PHOTO: UN REPORT
Education
In Pakistan, one in three children between the ages of five and nine are not in school, according to the report.
Poverty plays a major role when it comes to education in Pakistan, with a gap of 50 percentage points between the richest and the poorest children.
Highlighting the sad state of affairs of the education system in the country, the report stated that 51% of children in Grade 5 cannot read Grade 2-level text in their local language. Also, 57% of the fifth year of primary education cannot do two-digit division.
When it comes to gender, in rural areas of Pakistan, only 38% of girls can do simple arithmetic compared with 45% of boys. Only 43% of the girls can read as compared to 48% of the boys.
In rich families, the gender gap does not exist when it comes to education.
Just 15% of girls from poorest families can read basic Urdu as compared to 21% of boys from poorest families and 42% of girls from richest families.
PHOTO: UN REPORT
COMMENTS (10)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
I think its a good stat. Marrying at an age 18 or younger isnt that bad keeping in view the western turn 30s before they do but they live a life of uncertainty and are always exploring options. Most of them have to deal with the phobia of keeping up with their new relations but having older ones in mind. It is better to marry earlier in life then to stay single and be with those you might regret latter.
It is sad to see the plight of women and children in south Asia. While we have a couple of hundred nuclear warheads each our real enemy is still poverty, backwardness, hunger and social evils. Shame on those countries which do not take care of their poor masses and are bent upon millions of army and latest weapons.
This is shocking - I was expecting a higher percentage.
The U.N. should also formulate statistics on how many women in the West aged 20-24 were married before they had babies though. 20-24 is even generous. Make it 16-18.
We do better than most of S Asia on age at marriage for 18-24 y.o. The stats that are particularly dismal are the neonatal mortality rate and prevalence of stunting where we are the laggards of the sub-continent. Correlated with the stats on literacy those point to an intergenerational cycle of malnutrition illiteracy and poor access to health care (the NNMR is linked to poor antenatal and delivery care.
Not that it is a happy fact that a quarter of these women were married when they children but interesting that ET chose that as the headline
@AB: you presume that girls who are ,at this point in time, below 20 or above 24 were not married before age 18;in fact the women who are older than 24 probably have even a higher percentage.Also absolute numbers don't tell much,it is the percentages that show the real picture.
We have become a pagan fuedalistic society living in the dark ages under mullah perpetuated superstition and ritual of out ward piety.
For the next 5 years we should all learn about Qaid e Azam and read his speeches.
@ wot not: living in fools' paradise are we?
This is our plight, we look down contended with how much distance is left before we hit the ground, we are not motivated yo look up.
If you look at it deeply, it is really not too bad as being portrayed here. Per latest age structure, 59.1% of Pakistans are between age 15-64. Even if with convervative assumption of high young population, let say we have 30% of these are between 20-24 (which is really a high number for just 3 years of age span) and 50% of them are females (although we have slightly less females than 50%). So even using this, here is what we are talking about:
24% of 50% of 30% of 59.1% of 192 million people are the girls that are "probably" married prior to age 18. Please give me a break!
@wot not: Commendable attitude. fast claps
Dear United Nonsense. At least they married, and did not get pregnant at 16.