Women lawmakers gaining, study says

Women have secured more places in parliaments and governments worldwide in the last three years, a new study showed Friday, but officials said progress was slow and only quota systems would speed it up.

Nearly 18% of the world’s lawmakers are women and 16.1% of ministerial posts are held by women, according to a “World Map of Women in Politics 2008,” released at the United Nations. Both figures are 2 percentage points higher than a 2005 study.

“Women continue to gain ground in politics,” Anders Johnsson, secretary general of the Geneva-based Inter-parliamentary Union, told a news conference. “But if you ask me, it is very slow progress.”

The small east African state of Rwanda remained No. 1 for female representation in parliament, with almost 49%. Second was Sweden, with 47%, and third was Finland, with 41.5%.

At the bottom were Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman and the Pacific islands of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands, none of which have any women in their assemblies.

For the first time, women occupy more than half the ministerial posts in two countries, Finland and Norway, according to the map produced by the Inter-parliamentary Union and the United Nations.

Despite the progress, Johnsson said that at the current rate gender parity in parliament would not be achieved before 2050. He and other speakers at the news conference said quota systems had made the difference.

“If you look at the statistics of the countries that are doing well today, a sort of a common denominator is that they have introduced some form of quota system,” he said. Such systems can be imposed at the state or political party level.

Carolyn Hannan, director of the U.N. Division for the Advancement of Women, denied quotas were undemocratic and said they were permitted under the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women.