In Pakistan, low literacy rates hurt health, welfare

Outside a small pharmacy in the dusty capital of Pakistan’s vast southwestern Balochistan Province, Zaitoon Bibi, 25, clutches two bottles of medicine. “One is for the cough and one is for fever. I hope I can remember which is which,” she says, looking worried.

Like thousands of other women across Pakistan, Zaitoon finds her inability to read a significant handicap in her daily life. The lettering on the bottle makes no sense to her and she must depend on help from neighbours to read the instructions on dosage.

In the low-income shanty town where Zaitoon and her husband, a labourer, live, literate neighbours are not easy to find. According to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), literacy still stands at only 50 percent in Pakistan. Read more from this report on the IRIN website.