Are the Pakistani youth disappointed with the country’s future?

The youth group is the strength of any society, the wave of life flows from it, it is the biggest factor of development and prosperity.

One should examine the societies where this class is less numerous and then what are the effects of this reduction there. In a society where children and the elderly grow, there is a lot of poverty and other such problems, for example, in the African continent, the rate of children under 15 years of age is 40 percent and the rate of elderly people over 65 years of age is 3 percent. Overall their rate is 43 percent.

On the contrary, in Europe, the percentage of people under fifteen years of age and over sixty-five years of age is only 35 percent. 35% in North America, 34% in Asia, same rate in Latin America. Now, if you consider the conditions of these societies in the light of these statistics, the reasons will become clear to you.

In Pakistan, 64% of the population is under 30 years of age. Every year, 4 million youths enter the working age, out of which only 39% find employment. Almost half of Pakistani youth have no education, no employment, and no training.

In such a situation, they see their future as bleak while living in Pakistan. They begin to dream of going abroad, be it foreign Italy or some other such country, which itself is constantly suffering from economic crises.

However, those who dream of leaving Pakistan say that foreign countries surrounded by economic crises will be better than Pakistan. This is the reason why the tendency of young people to leave the country and go abroad is getting stronger. The biggest tragedy is that even the educated and skilled youth are not ready to stay in the country. They are also getting very frustrated with the situation.

The question is why? What harm is being done to Pakistan by their disappointment? And what is the cure for their despair?

Why is ‘brain drain’ happening?

If you want to know why brain drain is happening and why our people prefer to go to Europe and other countries and become second-class citizens? So the answer is that ‘brain drain’ has started in Pakistan since 1950. Intelligent professionals of the country take citizenship of other countries for the sake of higher standard of living or accept to become a second-class citizen, the main reason for which is the secure future of children with higher income, worldwide travel facilities, social security, etc. Included .

This type of brain drain occurs in all societies of the world. Somewhere less and somewhere more. Some governments express their pride by sending their people abroad that in this way the foreign exchange reserves of the country will increase. This is true, of course foreign exchange increases, if the skilled class becomes surplus, it must go abroad, but if all the skilled people of the society go to other societies, what will be left for the children of this society?

According to a recent survey, our passport directorate has seen a dangerous trend since 2021. The trend is that our passport directorate used to make more or less 20,000 passports daily in Pakistan and foreign countries, but since last year this number has increased to 30,000 per day.

According to a report of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), a large number of youths are submitting applications for passports every day. Most of the passport makers are young people.

According to the data, 765 thousand people have left Pakistan and gone to other countries in 2022 alone. A large number of doctors, engineers and IT experts were included in them.

It should be remembered that the number of people who left Pakistan in 2021 was 225,000, while the number of immigrants in 2020 was 288,000. In 2019, six lakh Pakistanis went abroad.

Before that, 382 thousand in 2018, 496 thousand in 2017, 839 thousand in 2016, 946 thousand in 2015, 752 thousand in 2014, 622 thousand in 2013, 638 thousand in 2012, 4 in 2011. 56,000, 3,62,000 in 2010 and more than 4,000,000 in 2009 went abroad for work.

According to the ‘Bureau of Immigration’, most of the people who left Pakistan and went abroad moved to the countries of the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Interestingly, most of the Pakistanis who go to Europe go to Romania. If analyzed on the basis of these statistics, one positive aspect is that Pakistanis go abroad and send foreign exchange to Pakistan, which proves to be a factor in the improvement of the country’s economy, but the other side of this picture is very disturbing.

Instead of directly benefiting the country and nation with their ability, people go out to serve other nations of the world. The views they express before going abroad paint a grim picture of our country.

An officer of the ‘Bureau of Immigration’ said on the condition of anonymity that the poor country’s economy and political instability are affecting the work force of Pakistan. Millions of young people are worried about inflation, unemployment and uncertain economic and political situation and go abroad in search of employment.

It is disappointing and unfortunate that our youth want to leave Pakistan and go to other countries. This means clearly that the youth in Pakistan do not see their future well.

Some of them are facing economic problems and some are facing security challenges. Many young people feel that they do not get respect in this country, but the main reason for brain drain from Pakistan is the bad economic situation.

The degree to which the majority of youth are unemployed in Pakistan was demonstrated a few weeks ago in Islamabad, where more than 30,000 youth took the test for 1667 posts in the police department. While the applications for these more than 1500 vacancies would have come in unknown numbers.

Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) conducted a youth survey in 2022, which revealed that more than 37 percent of educated youth want to leave Pakistan.

According to the survey that came in 2021, 30 percent people wanted to leave Pakistan. Many young people want to go to work in the Middle East.

This survey is important in the sense that this number of youth is increasing day by day because there are no job opportunities in Pakistan. Among these young people who go abroad for employment, the percentage of young people from Balochistan is high. They wish to settle abroad. Whether to go on a ‘Study Visa’ and go there and start a job/labour etc. Pakistani youth understand that peace is not in the grave but in Europe and other countries.

The country’s situation is in front of everyone. Bad economy, unemployment, freedom of expression, extremism, violation of basic human rights etc. are also in front of everyone. When our young people see this whole scenario, they do not feel any improvement in the future, so they try to go to Europe and other countries illegally at any cost and in any situation without even caring for their lives.

These people start their journey to Europe illegally and dangerously for the dream of a better life and a better future.

Some merciless human smugglers, agents stuff these youths into containers through illegal means and leave them at the mercy of circumstances. Some of them die and some are serving time in jails after being caught. Those lucky people who reach Europe face innumerable problems like visa, green card, asylum, prison, language, employment.

Most of the young people who want or try to go abroad are between 18 and 30 years old. Among the reasons given for these youths leaving the country, the most notable reason is that they do not get the respect they deserve in Pakistan.

The main reason among the youth of Sindh is insecurity. The trend of going abroad from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is more among women. Due to discrimination based on gender, they want to go to a place where they can live freely. While the reasons for those leaving from Punjab are economic.

Frustration situation

According to the Punjab Education Department, there is a severe shortage of teachers in the government colleges of Punjab. There are many colleges where there are no Math, Physics and Chemistry teachers. The principals of these colleges are approached by MPhil youths who beg to hire us as deputy messengers or to give us the job of watchman. After that we will also teach those subjects whose teachers are not present. One can imagine how seriously frustrated this situation is.

If we compare with the situation faced by the unemployed youth. They see a darkness that we do not understand. Wherever they see the light of hope, whether that hope is true or false, legitimate or illegitimate, the young people go that way.

Similarly, sometimes these youths join extremist groups and then they vent their anger. Taliban and Daesh also include many educated youths, most of whom are doctors and engineers. Even if the frustrated youths do not go to these organizations, they get involved in criminal activities in the society, and the incidents of thefts and robberies increase.

The situation in Pakistan is that earlier the number of street crimes was very high in Karachi, now street crimes have increased exceptionally in cities like Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Majority of the youth are involved in these crimes. We generally get emotional about problems but don’t bother to think about their causes. Our rulers do not at all. However, the question is, if they turn a blind eye to this situation, it will become so dangerous that even the elite class will not be safe in the security circles.