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By donating to our initiative, you are empowering people who are fighting poverty.

100% of all proceeds go towards purchasing items such as food, clean water, personal hygiene products and school supplies.

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Our core focus will be to help people meet their most basic needs with dignity so they can focus on greater goals. By providing food, clean water, hygiene products, and school supplies, we are simply removing barriers and allowing people to have the opportunity to achieve.

Pakistan’s first ever official report on multidimensional poverty was launched on June 20, 2016 by the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform. The report details Pakistan’s official Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) which was earlier published in the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2015–2016. The report has been compiled with technical support from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Pakistan and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford.

According to the report, nearly 39% of Pakistanis live in multidimensional poverty, with the highest rates of poverty in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the province of Balochistan. Pakistan’s MPI showed a strong decline, with national poverty rates falling from 55% to 39% from 2004 to 2015. However progress across different regions of Pakistan is uneven. Poverty in urban areas is 9.3% as compared to 54.6% in rural areas. Disparities also exist across provinces.

The report found that over two-thirds of people in FATA (73%) and Balochistan (71%) live in multidimensional poverty. Poverty in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa stands at 49%, Gilgit-Baltistan and Sindh at 43%, Punjab at 31% and Azad Jammu and Kashmir at 25%. There are severe differences between districts: Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi have less than 10 percent multidimensional poverty, while Qila Abdullah, Harnai and Barkhan (all in Balochistan) have more than 90 percent poverty. Deprivation in education contributes the largest share of 43% to MPI followed by living standards which contributes nearly 32% and health contributing 26%. These findings further confirm that social indicators are very weak in Pakistan, even where economic indicators appear healthy. The report also found that the decrease in multidimensional poverty was slowest in Balochistan, while poverty levels had actually increased in several districts in Balochistan and Sindh during the past decade. The level and composition of multidimensional poverty for each of Pakistan’s 114 districts are also covered in this report.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index uses a broader concept of poverty than income and wealth alone. It reflects the deprivations people experience with respect to health, education and standard of living, and is thus a more detailed way of understanding and alleviating poverty. Since its development by OPHI and UNDP in 2010, many countries, including Pakistan, have adopted this methodology as an official poverty estimate, complementing consumption or income-based poverty figures.

With approximately 188.9 million citizens, Pakistan ranks 147th out of 188 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI). Reports on poverty in Pakistan show that as much as 40% of the population–roughly the size of the population of Florida, California and New York combined–live beneath the poverty line.

The Economic Survey 2018 revealed Pakistan’s percentage of people living below the poverty line has fallen to 24.3% in 2015-16 from 50.4% in 2005-06. According to the Economic Survey, Pakistan’s poverty headcount has registered a prominent decline in the last decade or so at both the regional and national levels. The country’s poverty headcount has exhibited a continuous fall at both the regional and national levels, with poverty in rural and urban areas showing a declining trend with a poverty headcount of 12.5%, 30.7%, and 12.5%, respectively in 2015-16. The fall in poverty shows more prominence in urban areas than rural areas, reported the Economic Survey 2018.

Menstruation has been treated as taboo and vilified since ancient times. Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher who shed light on worldly understanding of menstrual blood.

Unfortunately, these kinds of ancient beliefs about a woman’s monthly blood have seeped into today’s contemporary world. Pakistani beliefs include: women are not allowed to take a bath, they should not cook or touch sour food, should not drink cold drinks and should not exercise when they are menstruating.

Apart from using socks, cotton wool or rolls of cloth, and then limiting all movement, many women use drastic measures to control the flow. Some use ashes and some even sand. Obviously, this points to the possibility of several medical issues.

UNICEF research has shown that menstrual health affects girls’ education in Pakistan. Many girls are not able to continue their education or are pulled out of schools due to reasons like the absence of washrooms and menstrual supplies, the perception of her being of marriageable age, ridicule by boys, and poor performance on their schoolwork.

Pakistan International Federation of Medical Students' Associations In Pakistan, there is a dearth related to hygienic and unhygienic practices, discomforts , misconception related to nutrition ,and restrictions imposed during menstruation.
    - 52% of total population of the world is female and goes through the process of menstruation. Yet it is a subject that is stigmatized. Girls are taught to view it as a subject of shame and hence the girls are unable to share their experiences, pain, problems and discomforts regarding menstruation. It is considered a taboo in many cultures.
    - 3 out of every 10 girls are unaware of menstrual hygiene. This adds up to the problem and can cause risk of several infections and gynecological problems in future for these girls.

According to the latest studies conducted in Pakistan over 22 million children are out of school. The area of Balochistan is home to the highest proportion of those out-of-school children followed by FATA. The report states approximately 70% of children in Balochistan, 57% in FATA and 52% in Sindh were out of school. 

Of the 22.5 million children out of school currently, 5.06 million children are of primary school age. And of these, more girls are out of school than boys. In primary to higher secondary level, 49% of the population of girls were out of school compared to 40% of the population of boys.

With an estimated 80 million school-age children, according to the report, “Shall I Feed my Daughter or Educate Her?”, more than 1/3 of Pakistani girls are not attending primary school compared to the 21% of boys. Only 13% of girls in Pakistan are still in school by the 9th grade.

As of 2018, 22.5 million children in the country are still not in school, according to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party manifesto. But in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province, for example, the gender disparity in school attendance is stark— 81% of girls did not finish primary school in 2014, compared to 52% of boys, Human Rights Watch reported. In 2013, UNICEF found literacy rates are 20% higher for boys than girls.

For many young girls in Pakistan, receiving an education is their only hope for avoiding child marriages. It is estimated that 21% of girls in Pakistan are married before the age of 18, and 3% are married before their 15th birthday, according to the organization Girls Not Brides. UNICEF reports Pakistan has the sixth highest number of absolute child brides in the world – 1,909,000. Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that girls are somehow inferior to boys. In Pakistan, child marriage is also driven by:

• Traditional customs: Swara, where girls are married off to resolve disputes or debt, continues in rural communities and is often sanctioned by a council of elders. Watta Satta (bartering for brides) and pait likkhi (marrying girls off before they are born or very young) also still occur.

• Gender norms: Deeply entrenched patriarchal norms continue to drive child marriage, and girls who marry late are often shamed for “deviating” from tradition.

• Family practices: Marriages among families or tribes (addo baddo) are still common in Pakistan. 34% of married 16-17 year old girls are married to a first cousin on their father’s side.

• Religion: Some Pakistani Muslims believe their religion requires them to marry off their daughters once they reach puberty. This also relates to a desire to protect a girl’s izzat (honour), and the high premium attached to the chastity of young unmarried girls.

• Level of education: Dropping out of school early is both a cause and consequence of child marriage. A 2017 study shows that each year of additional secondary education reduces the risk of child marriage by 3.4% in Pakistan.

Child brides who stop attending school are more likely to experience domestic violence, unintended pregnancy, induced abortion, pregnancy complications, low birth weight of children, and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Intimate partner violence also negatively affects girls' mental health, leading to depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Child brides are also at higher risk of experiencing physical, sexual, emotional, and other forms of violence in the home at the hands of their husbands' families and in-laws. As they are often dependent on their husbands and in-laws, they are unable to speak out against these acts of violence.