Support UNICEF in Pakistan
With an estimated figure of 180 million, Pakistan is the sixth largest populated country in the world. Three quarters of Pakistanis are children and women, whose majority lives in rural areas where poverty, illiteracy and diseases are widespread. More than a third of the population does not have access to enough food and life expectancy at birth is 63 years.
EMERGENCIES & DISASTERS – A PERPETUAL DANGER
The country is prone to frequent natural disasters, especially earthquakes in the north and east of the country, and flooding in Punjab, Sindh and South Balochistan. In the current year, the country has been through several natural disasters and political emergencies at the same time. In its southern parts, which comprises desert ranges, a seasonal drought turned into an emergency and caused deaths in hundreds, forcing thousands to migrate for food.
In its north-west, a military operation against terrorist elements has caused hundreds of thousands of locals—more than half of them children and women--to leave their homes and seek refuge in temporary camps.
Very recently, torrential rains and floods in one of its largest rivers, Chinab—which runs through Punjab, the country’s largest populated province— along with other tributaries in the Pakistan Administered Kashmir have killed 360 people, affecting more than two and a half million people including children and women, displacing millions (figures for flood emergency were updated last on September 30, 2014 – Source: NDMA, Pakistan).
All this when many who had been affected in the disasters the country was faced with almost half a decade ago are still in need of humanitarian aid.
Unfortunately, the country is struggling to become polio-free. With a 184 reported polio cases (as of October 01, 2014), a large number of people in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces along with the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) rejecting polio vaccination for non-medical reasons, and a travel restriction of polio vaccination before international travel to and from the country, Pakistan is one of the only three countries in the world where the crippling disease remains endemic, and is responsible for 80 percent of polio cases diagnosed around the world this year.
With a very contrasting mix of rural and urban cultures, the country’s social problems vary from highly tribal to highly urban; on one hand, Pakistan has child labour including bonded (child) labour, child marriages, reports of sexual abuse and violence involving children and adolescents, and on the other hand there are children, adolescents and women who are unable to acquire formal education and are pursuing both informal education and various livelihood options for survival.
A large part of the country suffers the lack of access to clean drinking water, basic health facilities, basic education with a noticeable portion of the population still not free from open-defecation.
Through its country office in Islamabad, UNICEF manages a regular country programme in all of Pakistan’s provinces, including Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, along with a countrywide humanitarian response programme. UNICEF works with the Government of Pakistan, international development partners, other UN agencies, local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and communities so that the best support can be given to millions of vulnerable children and women of Pakistan.
Click on any of the three categories on the left to find out how you can support UNICEF and its mission of serving women and children of Pakistan and the world, and how your contribution will help.