Health Minister Offers Absurd Solution to Control Pakistan’s Population

A recent UN report titled ‘World Population Prospects 2022’ revealed that Pakistan’s population will jump to 366 million by 2050. To put into perspective, it will be an increase of 56% in the country’s current 220 million population.

Instead of taking holistic measures after the publication of the UN report, Federal Health Minister, Abdul Qadir Patel, has come up with an absurd solution to rein in the rapidly rising population of Pakistan.

Addressing an event earlier today, the Minister suggested everyone with the “desire to have more children relocate to countries where the population of Muslims is extremely low.”

The Minister also highlighted the need for raising awareness about family planning among the citizens to control the exponentially rising population of Pakistan.

While addressing the event, Christian Turner, British High Commissioner to Pakistan, said that Pakistan’s population is going to double in the next 30 years putting a huge burden on its resources.

The business-as-usual approach needs to stop. It is important to talk about family planning. The UK is the largest donor to family planning in Pakistan and has been supporting the country since 2012. Delivering Accelerated Family Planning in Pakistan (DAFPAK) is a £90 million programme that has so far reached 7 million family planning users mostly from marginalized communities. The UK remains committed to supporting Pakistan.

While addressing the World Population Day event via a video testimonial, Dr. Arif Alvi expressed concern over the constant population growth and the meager resources available in Pakistan. He said that the government needs to exercise all options to sensitize the public about the negative implications of population growth not only on human health, especially of mother and child, but also on the economic as well as social life of people.

Country Representative UNFPA Pakistan, Dr. Bakhtior Kadirov called for focusing on every person; on ensuring our world can support our needs and those of future generations, on human rights, and on leaving no one behind.

The UN released the World Population Prospects 2022 last week on the occasion of World Population Day. The report has predicted the global population, which is currently 7.7 billion, to exceed 8 billion by the end of this year.

Previous reports had predicted the global population to peak after 2100. However, the world population is now expected to touch its peak 20 years earlier in 2080 when 10.4 billion people will be living on earth.


  • Once again a minister has shown that when they think, the poor class is not even in the back of their mind. Even if we take his suggestion seriously and just apply it on labour class of the country, he wishes for them to go to a foreign country and find a life partner there and settle. This is hardly something that a middle class person can afford, let alone the poor. Pakistani Ministers have to be the most disconnected people from their country’s ground realities than others.


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