Depressed and Dying Youth

 

   Pakistan is home to more than 220 million people. According to different survey reports, ages of almost 60pc of the people are lying in the working age group. When one looks at the statistics, he calls the staggering numbers an asset for Pakistan.

   However, the actual situation is very different. The youth of the country is in highlights all over the world but for wrong reasons.

   A few of them have been dying at the shores of Europe in the quest of reaching developed countries of the world while others have been felling prey to depression and anxiety. According data of Bureau of Immigration of 2022, those who have skills and finance to become part of developed societies have been leaving the country in massive numbers.

   Here, a simple question pops up in the minds of people why youth is feeling insecure in its homeland? What sort of factors are making it anxious and depressed?

   One can get answer of these questions by carefully analyzing socio-economic and political dynamics of the country.

   Socially, Pakistan is a closed society. Opportunities for social mobility are minimum. It is almost a tacit norm that children of a cobbler will also cobblers and politician will remain politcians. Surprisingly, the trait is so entrenched in the community that it is also very effective in the religious domains. When clergymen retire from the duty, one from their children takes the post. The same is true for other categories and professions. Consequently, the young people who want to excel in lives are bound to feel anxious and take risks of lives to become part of open societies.

   Politically, the system is inept and nonchalant. Politicians have been up in arms against one another. Their only major concern is to prolong stay in the government offices by giving titles of traitor, foreign agent and hypocricrat to opponents. Ordinary people are suffering from absymal healthcare and education facilities, inflation, unemployment and many other challenges but the top tier leadership has no time to ponder over the issues. And, it also does not have any vision to change the fate of the youth.

    Similarly, bad governance and corruption are also bad omens about the future. For example, judiciary has been taking decades to dispense justice while Federal Public Service Commission has been consuming years to recruit an aspirant. One is compelled to lick boots of army of clerks and officers and bribe them for any sort of legal proceedings through the government offices. The working mechanism of the whole governance structure is same and ills have eroded away the trust.

    Hyperboles and lipservices of policymakers are other areas which have been feeding uncertainties among the youth. For instance, as per National Security Policy, the government has to give prime importance to human security but it has not allocated sufficient amounts for improvements in the health, education and development sector in the budget. It means there is no security of all these fundamental rights in Pakistan. These differences between actions and policymaking have also negative economic fallouts for the youth.

   To a greater extent, misuse of the technology in the form of electronic, print and social media is also fading away the confidence. On one hand, the media is continuously airing unnecessary negative aspects of the country to get maximum rating; on the other hand, the same platforms are presenting attainment of nationality of European and American countries as panacea of all the difficulties and challenges of the lives. Resultantly, a few have been getting depressed by watching such content while another group of the youth has been trying to reach Europe and America at any cost, even at the risk of their lives.

    In a nutshell, tragic incidents like drowning of ship carrying hundreds of Pakistanies in Greece, rising depression rate and massive brain drain are not natural phenomena. They are the births of the loopholes in the system. And, if the authorities do not take measures to fix the issues, the youth is going to be the number one internal security threat to Pakistan.