On the International Women’s Day, Dr Catharina Boehme, Officer-in-Charge, WHO South-East Asia, said southern Asia accounted for about 13 per cent of global maternal deaths in 2023.“Progress on women’s health and well-being is slow across the WHO South-East Asia Region. Besides, adolescent birth rates remain high, and the use of modern contraceptive methods has stalled in several countries. Recent estimates show that South-East Asia has the highest prevalence of intimate partner violence among all WHO regions, at 20.5 per cent in the past 12 months,” she said, adding mental, neurological, substance abuse and self-harm conditions also disproportionately affect women throughout their life course.International Women’s Day-2026, under the theme ‘Rights. Justice. Action. For All Women and Girls,’ reaffirms that all women and girls have the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health and wellbeing, and that it is incumbent upon all to translate this right to reality, Boehme added.She remarked that health was not gender-neutral, as policies that ignore gender differences deepen inequality.“Universal health coverage cannot be achieved if women and girls are left behind. Emergency preparedness plans are incomplete if they do not account for the specific risks women and girls face during crises,” she added.Boehme further said that the integration of gender across the planning cycle was being strengthened, while WHO country offices were improving their capacity to apply gender markers to programme design, budgeting and monitoring.“In 2025, the #BecozSheMatters campaign in the Delhi Metro System, implemented with India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the WHO India Country Office, brought women’s health and well-being messages to nearly 2,00,000 people each day during the ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’,” she recalled.