This piece is about three categories of people in Pakistan. The first are the changemakers who are, in their own way, a little like Sarah Norman, the deaf woman at the heart of Children of a Lesser God, insisting on being heard by a system that would rather they weren't. These "stupid" people refuse to stop insisting on being heard. They keep showing up to hearings that get adjourned. They keep running helplines nobody adequately funds. And, notably, they are rarely social media stars, a status that has become, for many, the real measure of a person's worth and clout. The second category is the system itself: one that works reliably for elites and almost no one else. The third, and the actual subject and emotional centre of this piece, is Pakistan's disadvantaged children. I would ask editors not to cut the word "emotional"  it does not erase fact or logic; it simply names what is at stake.

One clarification: this is not an investigative report. I did not have the time or resources an investigation would require, and government offices which in my experience rarely answer written/email queries in any useful timeframe were not pursued further. Pakistan is home to between 25.1 and 26 million out-of-school children  among the highest such figures anywhere in the world  according to a 2026 Civil Services Academy review citing UNICEF assessments. Worth noting: the government's own Economic Survey 2025-26 reports a more optimistic trend by a different measure  the out-of-school rate falling from 38 percent in 2023 to 28 percent in 2025. Both figures can be true at once; a falling rate against a large and growing population base is not the same thing as fewer children actually left behind. 

Public spending on education and health combined comes to about 1.6 percent of GDP — education at 0.8 percent (Rs 962 billion) and health at 0.8 percent (Rs 942.2 billion) in FY2025  according to the Economic Survey 2025-26 itself. Nearly 40 percent of children under five are stunted. And child sexual abuse  abduction, sodomy, rape, gang rape, murder after abuse  has become, in the driest sense of the word, "routine": According to a national level reputed NGO Sahil's Cruel Numbers 2025 report logged 3,630 cases reported in newspapers alone last year, more than nine children a day, an 8 percent rise on 2024  and that is only what was reported and made it into print. I still become curious and concerned, despite knowing the details of this broken system, whether there was ever a real intention to fix it  or whether what exists is a system that works exactly as designed: pro-corruption, pro-elite, and, when convenient, pro-justice.

Classism and aristocracy are the enduring inheritance of monarchs and colonial rulers everywhere.

Classism and........

© The Friday Times