Pakistan
Pakistan’s security situation is volatile and unpredictable and the country is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, landslides and droughts. Only 50% of adults in Pakistan can read and write, the gap between rich and poor is widening and the proportion of the population who live on less than US$1 a day continues to rise.
- We’re making sure more than 30,000 working children get an education
- We’ve built 200 schools attended by more than 12,000 students
- We’ve helped save the lives of nearly 22,000 newborn babies
- We helped 299,000 children displaced by armed conflict
Photos from Pakistan
On 8 October 2005 Pakistan suffered an earthquake killing more than 2,000 people in the Bagh area alone.
Save the Children staff distributing shelter materials to 243 families. We surveyed affected villages to ensure limited resources were fairly distributed.
About 90 children from Government Girls High School, in Bagh lost their lives when their school was destroyed by the earthquake.
Girls playing together inside a tented Safe Play Area organised by Save the Children, in Thuri Park Relief Camp. Over 200 children attend this Safe Play Area.
Headteacher Niaz Ahmed teaches his class even though the school was destroyed in the earthquake. Save the Children have provided teaching equipment for the school.
Save the Children in Pakistan
We started working in Pakistan in 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan resulted in a large number of people seeking refuge across the border. Today, we work with local organisations to improve schooling, promote good health and keep children safe from harm. We also respond to emergencies such as earthquakes and floods, and campaign for changes to national policies and legislation that affect young people.
We're protecting children from harm
It’s estimated that at least 8 million children in Pakistan work — half of them aged between five and nine years — and often for long hours and in dangerous conditions.
We’ve helped 36,000 children to leave work and go to school, and provided credit facilities and business advice for 42,000 parents. We also participated in a campaign calling for an end to violence against children, helped to draft a Child Protection Bill for Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and we’ve campaigned for new child protection legislation to protect children across Pakistan.
We're helping children get a good education
Roughly half of all children don’t attend primary school and drop-out rates are high. We’ve helped more than 14,000 children who’ve missed the start of primary school, or who have dropped out. We’ve helped set up 43 non-formal education centres with flexible opening hours, where 1,300 children can catch up, and provided books, training and additional teachers for many schools. We also built 200 schools attended by 12,000 pupils in areas affected by the 2005 earthquake.
We're helping to save the lives of mothers and newborn babies
As part of Save the Children’s global EVERY ONE campaign, we’re working with district health authorities to prevent maternal and newborn deaths. Health committees in 40 villages have encouraged four times as many mothers to give birth in the health clinics, and three times as many to bring their newborn babies for treatment there. The project has benefited more than 21,730 babies and their mothers.
We’ve helped children caught up in natural disasters and conflict
When a series of earthquakes shook the flood-prone province of Balochistan in October 2008, 10,000 people lost their homes. We immediately provided food, tents, warm clothes and quilts and helped 27,650 children and their families recover from the floods. In early 2009, counter insurgency bombing forced 2.3 million people in North West Frontier Province to leave their homes and we provided shelter, healthcare and other emergency items for 296,440 children.
Find out more
- Read more about our work in Pakistan (PDF 114KB)
- Download From Disaster to Development, a publication from the Pakistan programme team
- Read an Alternative Report on the State of Child Rights in Pakistan
Pakistan related articles
- Wednesday 4 July 2007 Cyclone leaves thousands homeless in Pakistan
- Cyclone Yemyin and flash floods leave thousands homeless in Pakistan.
- Tuesday 26 May 2009 Growing threat of disease outbreak among Pakistan’s displaced families
- There is a growing threat that diseases including typhoid, cholera and tuberculosis will spread in northern Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are living in cramped, unhygienic conditions after fleeing the conflict
- Thursday 9 August 2007 Shameless cast support South Asia floods appeal
- The Shameless cast took to the streets of Manchester today to raise cash for Save the Children's South Asia flood appeal.
