They all have noble-sounding intentions but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”įresh political uncertainty has again left many Pakistanis wondering when their leaders will ever offer relief. “There is an intense struggle for power now in Pakistan. The political parties don’t care,” said Tahira Abdullah, a socio-economic development worker and human rights activist.

“My central thesis on this is nobody gives a damn. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani was indicted by the Supreme Court on Monday for failing to ask Swiss authorities to re-open corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.īefore that rumours of a coup gripped the country of 180 million people for months. Part of the problem is Pakistani leaders are often too consumed by power struggles or tussles with the Supreme Court and powerful military to address social ills. Outside orphanages, the organisation leaves cots with signs above them which read “Do not kill your children, leave them here and we will care for them.” The Edhi Foundation, the largest private provider of social services in Pakistan, says last year it rescued 110 such babies. Those who can’t bring themselves to commit suicide or infanticide, and still can’t find ways to provide for their children, sometimes abandon them. If someone had helped us maybe he would still be with us today,” said his weeping, 16-year-old son Riaz Hussain, who scratches out a living selling dried fruits and nuts from a stall. When the pressure became unbearable, he walked out of his thatch-roofed mud hut house early one morning, wrapped his turban around his neck and hung himself from a tree. One creditor after another threatened to call the police if he didn’t pay up. He borrowed money to start a livestock business but it folded.

People like Talib Hussain, 45, didn’t seem to benefit. “The government has led a very targeted and focused approach,” she said. Shahnaz Wazir Ali, special assistant to the prime minister on social affairs, argues Pakistan has made enormous efforts to eradicate poverty including monthly cash grants to poor families headed by women. By comparison, just over 17.8 percent went to defence, though some experts put the figure at 26 percent. In the 2011-12 budget, Pakistan’s government allocated 0.04 percent of spending for social protection schemes. Growing economic pressures could push the suicide figure even higher in the South Asian nation where over one in five people live below the international poverty line of $1 a day.Ĭritics say alleviating poverty has never been a priority. Since the mid-1990s, an estimated 150,000 small farmers have committed suicide in neighbouring India, mostly over debts, according to the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University.īut Pakistan has nowhere near the economic power that India does, so tackling social ills could be more difficult here. Suicide linked to poverty is not unique to Pakistan. The previous year 2,399 people killed themselves and poverty was a significant factor, but a precise breakup was not available, the commission said. In the ten months to October of 2011, about 1,600 people decided that suicide was the only option, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Others are drawn to militant groups seeking to topple the state. Pakistanis react to widespread hardship in many ways. “Bashiran told me the night before that it would be better for everyone if they all died,” said her mother-in-law, Barkat. She jumped in front of a speeding train with her two sons and daughter, all under the age of 3. So the maid, 25, decided there was only one way to deal with crushing poverty. A labourer is silhouetted as he sits in front of closed shops in a market in Karachi April 5, 2011.

Rule of rose love suicide