The worsening of key indicators related to female health, education and social development is a key issue holding back country's ability to meet global targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), said experts addressing a conference, "Pakistan's Challenges of Health and Nutrition in the context of Sustainable Development Goals: issues and progress," held at Aga Khan University here on Saturday.
Discussing Pakistan's progress in achieving 169 targets incorporated under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their conversion into long-term planning frameworks such as Vision 2025 and the National Health Vision 2016 - 2025, participants of the moot including federal and provincial government officials, researchers, civil society activists and medical experts regretted that girls continue to be less likely to receive a full course of vaccinations than boys of the same age.
Speakers including Dr Assad Hafeez, Director General, Health at Federal
Ministry of Health Services along with provincial government authorities acknowledged that though the latest data shows a narrowing of the gender gap in immunization, the persistence of this inequality for three decades meant that young girls and women were more vulnerable to preventable illnesses.
An overall decline in demand for treatment of diarrhea and pneumonia for both sexes over the past three decades was also registered with the extent of the drop being much larger for females with all chances that girl children were also less likely to receive treatment for these diseases than in the past.
"Lack of attention to female health and education both reflects and perpetuates a feudal, patriarchal mindset in the society that eventually limits the ability of Pakistani women to participate in the national development process and has cross-cutting and far-reaching impacts on our social progress," said Dr Zulfiqar A Bhutta, founding director of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health at AKU.
In presentations on Pakistan's efforts to combat child malnutrition, speakers noted that the country had not made encouraging progress and that even though the proportion of children who are underweight has declined slowly, one in three young children continue to have low weight for their age.