The disappointment on Daniel Massey’s face was an indicator of the lukewarm response from Pakistan’s minority Christians to the government’s first-ever digital population and housing census rolled out on March 1, with promises to be transparent and inclusive.
The massive undertaking aims to gather demographic data on every individual ahead of this year’s parliamentary elections. It is also expected to serve as an effective tool for planning measures for the socioeconomic development of the nation’s poor.
However, Christians don’t seem too enthused about participating in the latest self-enumeration campaign, says Massey.
The campaign is being conducted by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), a Lahore-based research and advocacy group, amid concerns that Christians have been undercounted in the national census over the past two decades.
According to the 2017 national census, Pakistan had 2.6 million Christians who form just 1.27 percent of its 207 million people, mostly Muslims.