By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
ACCORDING to the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2006-07, the country`s population growth rate has fallen to 1.9 per cent from a record high of 3.7 per cent per year in the 1960s.
The survey also gives the total fertility rate (the average number of children a woman would have if she went through her entire reproductive period, 15-49 years) as 4.1 which has been reduced considerably from 5.4 in 1990.
Continue reading Untold story of abortion
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
PUBLIC memory is proverbially short. But the bills passed on women are too recent an event to be consigned to oblivion. Twice in the last four months the government’s attempts to enact pro-women legislation – one on domestic violence and the other on sexual harassment — have ended in a fiasco.
Continue reading Mystery of the women’s bills
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
WHILE validating the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Ordinance 2007 in the form of a bill, the National Assembly paid rich tributes to Prof Adibul Hasan Rizvi and the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), Karachi.
They deserved the recognition they received — belatedly though — from our lawmakers.
Continue reading Where health is a birthright
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
A REPORT recently released by Fafen (Free and Fair Election Network), an umbrella organisation of 30 civil society groups working to foster democratic accountability in Pakistan, should provide us some food for thought on the workings of our democracy.
Continue reading Strange ways of our MPs
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
AT a time when the very future of our schools is so bleak, it appears almost crass to write about the need for introducing a school health programme in Pakistan. But, as pointed out by an observer, diseases take a heavier toll than bomb blasts. Hence they should not be ignored.
Continue reading Health cover for schools