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Pakistan has become a country that replete with sad news. We have become so (comfortably numb) that even the worst news put no noticeable effect upon our minds. But the fact that ten millions of children under age of five are shorter in height and weaker physically and mentally is absolutely not an ordinary one. This reality will potentially bring darkness and despise greater than our minds can think, if it is given no noticeable attention. It will bring an irreparable loss to the nation because it is impossible for any country to accommodate physically and mentally ill people in such a great number.

The fact that round about ten million children in Pakistan are stunted was unveiled by an international organization “Water Aid” in a report called “Caught Short” which was released in New Dehli some days ago depicting thorough data about stunted children in the world. Pakistan is third in the list after India and Nigeria. It is important to mention that if we consider the ratio of population with the number of stunted children, India is better than us. Because India has a bigger population that is why the number of stunted children are more than Pakistan. The report presents statistics of stunted children in 132 countries of the world. Pakistan stands the 8th worst country regarding the issue.

The root causes of the issue include lack of food, unavailability of clean drinking water and inappropriate system of toilet and cleanliness. These causes need to be addressed immediately to keep the children from getting into worse circumstances and retain the other children trapped. But we have to see far further to reach sustainable and implementable solution for the problem.

Ten million Pakistani children forgot to bring their food with themselves while being born thus they have no food to eat now. Those who have brought their food still face problem because they have not brought clean drinking water and proper toilet and sanitation system with themselves. Their sports, health and education facilities were also not in their luggage when they landed on the earth.
As society we have misunderstood the concept that each child brings his food with himself when he is born. We have to find a new meaning to the concept; otherwise we will keep bearing children not considering whether we have the basic resources like food, living place, health and education facilities on our hand to provide to the coming guest. Actually, all these facilities are the basic right of every human being and the responsibility to make all these available to their children are on the parents’ on first place. If parents cannot do it due to some problem then it is the responsibility of Federation. But it is important to mention that it is not possible for any state to provide these basic rights to children in such a great number. Practically, the state takes the responsibility of those children whose parents have died or cannot deliver their responsibility toward their children due to some serious issue. For those parents, who despite not having sufficient resources to nourish their children keep bearing a new one every year, the responsibility of the state is something else. The state should arrange to raise awareness among the people to keep the size of their families in the range of their resources. One of the major steps to attain this goal is making the women authoritative as they are to suffer more in such family problems. Thus they can think better and can be induced to change more easily.
If we want to lay grounds for our children to live a better life than we are living, we will have to treat this issue on emergency basis otherwise every new day will bring more darkness and hopes will disappear.

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