The WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia has mentioned that women's empowerment, especially in rural areas is the need of the hour, and upliftment of women will positively affect the health, nutrition, and future of young women and their families.

In the WHO South-East Asia Region and beyond, more than half the population – women – face what is often egregious discrimination.
Discrimination in education and the opportunity to learn to read and write. Discrimination in access to nutrition and the chance to grow healthy and strong. And discrimination in the workplace, where women can be subjected to unwanted advances or have their work undervalued or unpaid, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh said.

She said gender-based discrimination in these and countless other forms is a persistent problem across the South-East Asia Region and throughout women’s lives. But as much as gender-based prejudice and inequality violates human rights, stymies social and economic development, and crushes the hopes and dreams of millions of young girls and women, it also has a grave impact on public health and wellbeing.

Dr Poonam said the region-wide practice of early marriage and pregnancy, for instance, is a direct threat to the health of young women and their children, especially in rural areas. Around six million girls aged 15-19 years give birth in our region every year, while in four of the region’s countries the adolescent birth rate is more than 50 per 1000 women aged 15-19 years. This provides immense dangers to the health of young women – dangers that can be avoided via rapid social empowerment (including access to contraception) and the implementation of laws against early marriage, she said in a statement.