KARACHI, Sept 23: Lack of civic education, ineffective child protection, a multi-tier education system and poor governance were cited as some of the issues that Pakistan’s youth is faced with at a consultative workshop on Friday.

The workshop titled ‘Youth and conflict: charting pathways to peace and progress’ was organised by Shehri and the Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) at a local hotel.

Shehri’s Khatib Ahmed apprised the participants about the objectives of the workshop. He said poor governance was one of the reasons for the violence that recently engulfed the city. He said among many other things, civil society must get its act together to resolve this situation.

CDPI Joint Director Zaigham Khan, in a detailed presentation, pointed out the various shortcomings in society because of which the country’s youth was confronted with many problems. It was important that citizenship was asserted and it was time to revisit the 200-year-old laws pertaining to policing, he said, adding that the real power was with the people, especially the youth, but that had to be tackled with caution.

Mr Khan then touched upon the issue of youth’s radicalisation and commented that conditions were conducive to vulnerability leading to violence. He put it down to the extremely poor standard of education, arguing that there were different education systems existing in Pakistan owing to the stratification of society. He said there were no even economic opportunities for the youth and there was extremist infrastructure in the country because of which unemployed youngsters often strayed towards that path. He said proliferation of small arms, including Kalashnikov which was an assault weapon, was another important matter that must be tackled.

He then talked about the factor of ‘youth bulge’ in Pakistan and said 36 million people were between the ages of 15 and 24 while 58m were less than 15 years old in the country. “This means that 60 per cent of Pakistan’s population comprises less than 24-year-olds.” He said that with reference to youth bulge Pakistan was the second largest country in the world after Yemen (67 per cent). Bangladesh (55pc) and Egypt (54pc) were third and fourth, respectively.

He asked the audience, who mostly comprised boys some of whom were from the Kati Pahari area, what was common among Yemen, Pakistan and Egypt. The answer was that they were all regions in turmoil, ruled by dictatorships. This (youth bulge) was a challenge, he maintained. He said the youth that became radicalised felt discriminated against.

The CDPI joint director said there were three education systems functioning in the country: (1) government-run (2) private (3) madressah. As a result we were producing three kinds of students, totally different with respect to their outlook on life.

He said the poor quality of education was not able to produce skilled individuals. Then there was the issue of socioeconomic disparity; corruption too was causing injustice and unfairness to take root in society.

Giving his opinion on the media, he said the difference between reality and expectation (the media were showing the lives of affluent people etc) was causing ‘disconnect’ in the country. Most of all, he concluded, it was the bad image of Pakistan all over the world which was doing it great harm.

Additional IG Sindh Police Salman Syed, while taking part in the discussion and responding to a series of questions hurled at him, said that police were a reflection of the people in society. He said it was true that sometimes police in Clifton acted differently than the police in Orangi, but emphasised that they were a reflection of the society it belonged to.

An NGO worker, Mr Waheed, reminisced about the time from July 5 to July 10, 2011 when he and his co-workers were stranded in the Kati Pahari area and all the communication lines were blown up by miscreants belonging to different political groups. He said the issue was that political parties wanted to control resources in their respective areas.

The young boys from localities like Qasba Colony and other parts of Orangi briefly shared their stories, basically suggesting that the situation was so tense in those neighbourhoods that their mothers didn’t want them to step out.

In the end group work was undertaken and it was concluded that there should be quality education, civic education and technical education for the youth. Child protection, community policing and appropriate spaces for the young ones were also marked as areas which needed to be looked into.