The stupidest question you can ask an illiterate Pakistani is why he doesn't practice birth control. He thinks men who have only two or three children are either impotent or because it is God's will. Because all around him he sees men with six and more children, even though they are poor and do not earn enough to provide their children with food and education.
Allah Ditta is such a man. He is a self-employed painter who sits on pavements with carpenters, masons and electricians from morning till night. On most days he doesn't have any work. On good days he doesn't earn more than a thousand rupees, so he barely makes more than ten thousand a month. He also consumes narcotics like gutka, so he is not able to contribute much to household expenses. His wife is a cleaning woman who earns ten thousand a month, working in two apartments. So it's only natural that his six children are malnourished and have to beg from passing motorists to survive. His eldest child (a boy aged eleven) was bitten by a dog and his mother took him to a charitable hospital, only to find that they don't have the rabies vaccine in stock.
This is the story of at least eight out of ten couples in Pakistan. And it will remain that way unless the mullahs can be persuaded to advise poor people to limit the number of their children to two. But since mullahs themselves think birth control is a heinous sin, it's doubtful if they'll ever be convinced to do so.
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