Daily Times

Studies on the demographics and criminology have shown that the single most important factor in the future criminality of the child is low maternal education. Other strong predictors for the child’s future unlawful behaviours include childhood poverty; growing up in a single parent household (not an important factor in our society) doubles the risk and so is teenage pregnancy.

These studies have not been conducted in Pakistan and do not always reflect our social paradigm but they clearly underscore the importance of maternal education in the development of a stable, prosperous and peaceful society .These studies also reveal the domestic causes of increasing violence in our country where some of these acts of aggression are even encouraged by society in the name of religion, political associations and ethnic backgrounds.

Although there are several other factors that contribute in the prevalence of crime in society and can range from innovative policing to tougher gun laws and the well-timed capital punishment, their task is limited because of their curative and surgical approach when compared with the most preventable and fundamental role of educated and informed mothers in bringing up non-violent, peaceful individuals as members of a community.

In Pakistan, the debate on the escalation of terrorism — a violent crime — has typically focused on the erroneous policies of our security establishment and has somehow ignored the discussion on the pivotal role of stable and more educated families in reducing these crimes.

The conduct of our military in the Afghan war is denounced strongly and their support of the Afghan Taliban is condemned intensely throughout the nation from newspaper editorials and columns to political discussion forums but the outrage on the lack of educational facilities to the citizens is almost negligent.

We reckon an unequivocal diversion from our previous security policies and anticipate the formulation of an improved strategy to deal with the menace of extremism but are appallingly quiet on the issues of teenage marriages, poor schooling apparatus for the youth and the absence of social support structure for women in society.

We also do not contemplate the population burden of Pakistan, which has a growth rate of 2.2 percent and total fertility rate of 3.17 children born per woman in Pakistan. The total population in Pakistan is estimated to be more than 180 million people and per capita income of $ 1,000 per year. We commonly overlook the impact on our society of more than 60 percent of the population who live on less than $ 2 per day. And we forget that if our population continues to grow at the same pace we will have a population of more than 300 million in less than 20 years.

We do not realise that we spend less than one percent on our health, two percent (roughly) on our education, closely 20 percent [according to some estimates even higher] of our national budget on our security. Our economy has essentially plummeted in the last few years and our gross domestic product (GDP) has shrunk substantially. Although we jiggle with the numbers and claim the opposite to prove the expansion in GDP, even if true, is unable to keep up the with our population surge in the years to come.

By putting all these numbers together, we can easily envisage that in the next 10 years our education and health standards would deteriorate further and employment opportunities would diminish even more. Our national food requirement would soar, energy crisis would worsen and the writ of the state will be further compromised. It will result in further increase in the crime rate, targeted killings and terrorism that we still recognise in many parts of the country.

It will be in sharp contrast to those countries that have focused on education and successfully curtailed their population growth, which ultimately led to a sustained economic growth and drop in violence in their societies. India and China are the prime examples in this region and in them economic growth can simply be compared with their demographics, literacy rate and charted against their crime rates. Yet, the relentless growth in our population remains unheeded and ignored without any futuristic vision on economy, education and health.

The data is simply undisputable to remind us that we need to urgently take revolutionary measures to bring up the level of education of our population in order to combat the potential threat of escalating violence and terrorism in our society.

In the absence of which, unfortunately, we would rely upon more army operations like that of Swat and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) but this time instead they might have to be launched in Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan.

The writer is a freelance columnist residing in the US. He can be reached at skhashmi@yahoo.com