KATHMANDU, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Expert said 74 to 78 percent of Nepali women of reproductive age suffer from malnutrition, local newspaper The Rising Nepal reported Tuesday.
Addressing a press conference organized on Monday by the National Network for Right to Food, a Nepali NGO, chairperson of Women Rehabilitation Center Dr. Renu Raj Bhandari said women in Nepal were suffering from malnutrition and iron deficiency.
Citing that 74 to 78 percent of women of reproductive age suffer from malnutrition, Dr. Bhandari said first it was essential to ensure democracy within the families themselves.
Women were getting less quantity and quality of food within the family, and their families have become the violators of their right to food, Dr. Bhandari said.
Secretary General of All Nepal Peasants Federation Prem Dangal said at the press conference that 31 percent of people live below the poverty line in Nepal, of them 20 percent are starving or getting food one time a day.
The National Network for Right to Food Monday demanded right to food be treated as a basic human right with nearly 20 percent of Nepalese living on a single meal every day.
The network on the eve of the World Food Day has appealed to the general people to join its three-day campaign to start Tuesday to mount pressure on the concerned authorities to deal with hunger as a state of emergency. ¡¡
