Islamabad – Chairperson of the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change, Senator Sherry Rehman, warned that Pakistan is already facing the explosive consequences of three “silent time bombs” unchecked population growth, severe water scarcity, and mounting climate pressure, as she addressed the Pakistan Population Summit in Islamabad.
She said Pakistan has already entered the stage of acute water shortage predicted by the United Nations for 2025, while the country ranked as the world’s most climate-vulnerable nation in 2022. Rehman highlighted that Pakistan’s population is growing by six million annually, placing unsustainable pressure on already strained resources. As a result, children face hunger, health facilities are overwhelmed, and 26 million children remain out of school, a warning sign for the next generation.
The senator noted that the economy cannot keep pace with the demographic surge, with Pakistan needing three million new jobs each year, a target impossible to achieve under current economic conditions. She recalled that the 2022 floods inflicted damage equal to eight percent of GDP, a devastation worsened by rapid population growth. Nearly 45 percent of Pakistan’s population lives below the poverty line, while 11 million people experience acute hunger, making the country the most food-insecure in the region.
Citing WFP and World Bank findings, Rehman said a large number of children are deprived of even one full meal a day and 40 percent of children under five suffer from malnutrition and stunting. Maternal and infant mortality remain alarming, with 11,000 maternal deaths annually and the highest neonatal mortality rate in South Asia at 53.54 deaths per 1,000 births. She added that 19 million Pakistani girls have been subjected to child marriage, with one in every six women married as minors, a national tragedy demanding urgent action.
Rehman stressed that water consumption in Pakistan has exceeded available resources, and by the future, the country will need an additional 60 MAF to meet basic requirements. Women bear the heaviest burden of water scarcity, with 72 percent spending most of their day fetching water, an unpaid and exhausting responsibility that affects their health, livelihoods, and mental well-being.
Calling the population surge a public health crisis, she underscored that 17.3 percent of couples still lack access to family planning services. She warned that the burden of healthcare emergencies also disproportionately falls on women, who are often the first to sacrifice nutrition and medical care in crisis situations.
Rehman urged strict enforcement of existing laws against child marriage and emphasized the Islamic Ideological Council’s ruling that birth spacing is crucial for the health of mothers and children. She called for national-level coordination between ministries of health, education, women’s development, social welfare, water, and climate change.
She praised the Lady Health Worker Program, founded by Shaheed Benazir Bhutto in 1994, as a global “gold standard” for community-based health interventions. The program, she noted, played a key role in reducing Pakistan’s fertility rate from 6.2 in the 1980s to 4.8 by 2000. Rehman urged immediate expansion and strengthening of the program, and appealed to religious leaders to raise their voices on this critical issue.
She said all institutions must share the responsibility rather than placing the entire burden on the Population Council. She also called for transparent and effective use of the 10-billion population fund and for the integration of family planning into BISP, Sehat Sahulat, Aghosh, Mumta, and other social protection programmes.
Concluding her address, Sherry Rehman thanked the Dawn Group for championing the issue and fostering essential dialogue. She expressed hope that the conversation will continue at the highest levels so Pakistan can chart a sustainable path out of this mounting crisis.
