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ISSUE N°25
APRIL 2007

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white cube Editorial
white cube Female Genital Mutilation
white cube Cooperation with the UN
white cube Women in politics
white cube Interview with Mr. Erman Suparno
white cube Human rights
white cube Technical cooperation update
white cube Parliamentary developments
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The World of Parliaments
Women in Parliament

Women in Parliament in 2006:
More women make it to the top

Arecord number of speakers of parliament are women: 35 out of 262 presiding officers of parliament are now women. Women speakers were elected for the first time in Gambia, Israel, Swaziland, Turkmenistan and the United States of America. Where they were once concentrated in the Caribbean, women presiding officers are making inroads in all regions.

At the 51st session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, held in New York in early March, nearly half of the world’s women presiding officers met to examine their role in caring for the next generation of women, today's girl children.

Mrs. Syringa Marshall-Burnett The persons present in New York were (in this photo from left to right): Mrs. Dalia Itzik, Speaker of the Israeli Knesset and acting Head of State; Baroness Helene Hayman, Speaker of the United Kingdom House of Lords; Mrs. Fabiola Morales Castillo,Vice-President of the Congress of Peru; Uruguayan Senator Monica Xavier, President of the IPU Coordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians; Mrs. Edna Madzongwe, President of the Senate of Zimbabwe; Mrs. Gelane Zwane, President of the Senate of Swaziland; Mrs. Christine Egerszegi-Obrist, President of the Swiss National Council; Mr. Anders B. Johnsson, IPU Secretary General; Mrs. Anne-Marie Lizin, President of the Belgian Senate; Mrs. Dillian Francisca Doro Torres, President of the Colombian Congress; Mrs. Alix Boyd Knights, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Dominica; Mrs. Margareth Mensah-Williams,Vice-President of the IPU Executive Committee and Vice-Chairperson of the National Council of Namibia; and Mrs. Barbara Prammer, Speaker of the Austrian National Council. Mrs. Syringa Marshall-Burnett, President of the Senate of Jamaica, also attended the New York meeting.

Progress at regional level

Almost 17 per cent of parliamentarians worldwide are now women - an all-time high. In 1995, only 11.3 per cent of all parliamentary seats were held by women. The statistics on women in parliament, presented by the IPU in February following elections in 51 countries (61 chambers of parliament) in 2006, show women gaining ground in more than 60 per cent of the chambers that were renewed, winning 16.7 per cent of all parliamentary seats up for grabs in 2006. Of the women who won seats, 1,459 were directly elected, 63 were indirectly elected, and 35 were appointed.

Electoral gender quotas were used in 23 countries to bolster women's participation. In those countries with gender quotas, women took 21.7 per cent of seats as opposed to 11.8 per cent in countries without.

Three Gulf Cooperation Council States recorded significant political changes. In the United Arab Emirates, both women and men stood for election and voted for the first time in the country's history. Nine women entered parliament, taking 22.5 per cent of the seats. Women stood for election for the first time in Kuwait as well, but none won. In Bahrain, one woman was elected to the lower house for the first time in that country.

The Nordic countries continued to elect the highest numbers of women to their parliaments. Their regional average increased to 40.8 per cent after Sweden elected a greater number of women to parliament than in previous years.

The consistent rate of progress in the Americas over the past decade was largely sustained in all 20 parliamentary elections held in 2006. As a region, the Americas report 20 per cent average female representation, trailing only the Nordic countries, and ahead of Europe.

Less than three per cent of legislators in the Pacific Island states are women - the lowest regional average in the world. No women won seats in the elections held in the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu in 2006.

Maintaining a critical mass

Four countries maintained or surpassed the critical mass of 30 per cent parliamentary representation by women after elections in 2006. Sweden elected the highest number of women ever to its parliament. Women now hold 47.3 per cent of parliamentary seats there - the second highest percentage in the world after Rwanda, where women occupy 48.8 per cent of seats in the lower house. Sweden has been a world leader in women's parliamentary representation for several decades, recording progress at each election.

Challenging Nordic dominance is Costa Rica, which elected a parliament of 38.6 per cent women. Costa Rica is now the only Latin American country ranked among the top five nations in electing women to parliament. Close behind is the Netherlands, which has maintained a rate of female representation of over 33 per cent for the past ten years, and Austria, which, although registering a slight decrease, elected more than 32 per cent women. In December 2006, 19 parliaments had reached the criticalmass target established in the Beijing Platform for Action of 30 per cent women in decision-making positions.

Guyana, Peru and Uganda are all within reach of the critical mass. All three have reformed the electoral process to promote the participation of women, and in all three, greater numbers of women won seats in 2006.

Missed opportunities in post-conflict States

Reversing earlier trends, some of the biggest losers were post-conflict States undergoing electoral and parliamentary reform. In recent years, elections in Afghanistan, Burundi, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa and Timor-Leste had resulted in significant increases in the number of women in parliament. In 2006, however, women gained only 8.4 per cent of seats in the newly established lower house of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and 4 per cent of seats in Haiti's lower house. Indeed, fewer women now hold political office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo than in the previous transitional assembly. Although the debate on electoral reform there and in Haiti included women's political participation, no special measures were adopted to guarantee women's presence in parliament.

The lower house of Bosnia and Herzegovina remained unchanged in this regard, with women accounting for 14.3 per cent of parliamentary seats, the same proportion as in the outgoing assembly. [ See detailed ranking ].

For the first time in history,
a woman was voted Speaker of the Austrian National Council

Among the women speakers present in New York was Mrs. Barbara Prammer, who was elected Speaker of the Austrian National Council on 30 October 2006. Women were elected members of the Austrian Parliament for the first time in 1919. In those days, only a handful of women were parliamentarians. Speaker Prammer, who in the course of her political career has also served as Federal Minister in charge of women's issues, expressed the hope that the proportion of female members of the Austrian Parliament will continue to increase.

In January 2007, women also headed parliaments in the following countries: Albania, Antigua and Barbuda (both chambers), the Bahamas, Belgium, Belize, Burundi, Colombia, Dominica, Gambia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Lesotho, Peru, the Netherlands (both chambers), New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia (both chambers), South Africa, Swaziland, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

 

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