Due to continuous decline in national economy and increase in inflation, a very dangerous trend has set in; people who cannot afford to feed their children either sell them or hand them over to social welfare organizations like the Edhi Foundation. Every week, such incidents are reported in the electronic and print media. Nothing much is being done by the government or NGOs to address the issue. If this trend continues, it is generally apprehended that the meager few social organizations that do accept such children will stop facilitating all such children someday. Although philanthropists can be approached to support the extremely impoverished but the real solution is to educate people more effectively about family planning and better management of their resources. It is rather odd that parents who cannot afford more children are the ones who crave for more children in this country. A typical labourer would have at least four, and generally more, children which are certainly too many considering his daily wages are no more than a few hundred rupees. Due to illiteracy and poverty, the parents neither educate nor feed their children properly and, hence, countless new social problems get added to the existing ones. Although a lot of money has been spent on advertisements regarding family planning, it has had no effect on our people's profligacy to procreate. It seems mere advertisements in the media or big billboards on plazas don't work. A more comprehensive program should be initiated to educate people. -MUBASHER JAMIL, Rawalpindi, via e-mail, November 25.