Daily Times Editorials 30th August 2026

Growth Denied

Federal Health Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal has ordered officials to prepare “actionable recommendations” on malnutrition after warning this week that Pakistan cannot meet its health targets while mothers and children remain undernourished. The directive, issued at a meeting with finance adviser Adnan Pasha, needs to become more than another file passed between ministries.

While Mr Kamal cited a 43 per cent stunting rate, UNICEF’s latest update puts the number at four in every ten children under five, or roughly 10 million children. Its estimate of 17.7 per cent wasting means another five million face immediate danger. Malnutrition costs an estimated $17 billion a year, though no qualms about this price being first paid at home.

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Malnutrition
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Food inflation is only part of the story. Poor maternal diet, anaemia, early pregnancies, weak antenatal care, unsafe water and repeated diarrhoeal illness are all part of this self-perpetuating, vicious cycle. Interestingly, stunting reaches better-off homes, too, as diet quality, maternal care and the safety of household water supply matter across income levels. Only 38 per cent of Pakistani babies are exclusively breastfed for their first six months, while nearly 62 per cent of children under five are anaemic. Treatment programmes for severe acute malnutrition do achieve cure rates above global standards, according to UNICEF, yet reach fewer than five per cent of all malnourished children.Health

In July, Benazir Income Support Programme joined hands with international bodies to extend the Benazir Nashonuma Programme for another three years, aiming to reach another 3.3 million women and children. Since 2020, it has reached 4.7 million people; enrolled children were 22 per cent less likely to be stunted at six months. Its 578 facilitation centres and 224 nutrition stabilisation centres also make use of an existing national platform, serving as a commendable case study for federal coordination that could produce common district targets and dependable funding for dependable, reliable and trustworthy services.

Pakistan is still relying on a National Nutrition Survey completed in 2018. A fresh survey is overdue, as are public district-level results showing who is screened, who is treated and where basic health units fail families. The result should be presented publicly to parliament each year, alongside spending and district outcomes. *

Female Suicide Bombers

On Saturday, Balochistan Home Minister Ziaullah Langau said security forces acting on sensitive intelligence had recovered two minor cousins who were being moved for alleged Balochistan Liberation Army suicide missions. The girls had reportedly been targeted after killings within their families and pressed to turn grief into violence.

The BLA’s use of women in suicide operations has become a grim pattern. Its first female suicide attacker killed three Chinese teachers and their Pakistani driver at Karachi University in April 2022. Three more would-be bombers had been captured in counterterrorism operations in the preceding months.

This reported preparation of children reveals an uglier stage. A group claiming to defend Baloch rights is alleged to have sought to use bereaved girls as disposable messengers of death. There is no political vocabulary that can honour such conduct. Whatever anger exists in Balochistan, it cannot be permitted to be harvested by those who stay outside the blast radius and send women and children towards it. Recruiting women and girls supplies militants with a spectacle for propaganda. The spectacle conceals an impoverished politics, with so-called commanders drawing on family loss and calling it commitment.Access Crisis Counseling

The security forces, intelligence officers and civilian authorities whose work made the rescue possible deserve credit. The strongest measure of success lies in two minors brought home alive. The state now owes them more than a press conference. They need privacy, counselling, schooling and a safe return to ordinary life. Their families also need assurance that this protection will survive the news cycle.

Those who sustain the group must also face scrutiny. Islamabad should continue to place irrefutable evidence pertaining to the alleged facilitation offered to these separatist campaigns by hostile external networks before international partners. The United States’ 2025 designation of the BLA and its Majeed Brigade as Foreign Terrorist Organisations has already confirmed the group’s record. Pakistan’s partners should follow that designation with financial, digital and diplomatic pressure. It should leave no room for anyone to market suicide bombing as political expression. Balochistan’s genuine political questions belong in elected assemblies and public debate. The BLA’s violence closes those routes by spreading fear among the very people in whose name it claims to act. *