Press release of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Beijing, 16 September 1996
N° 2

IPU DATA REVEAL A DECREASING NUMBER OF WOMEN IN WORLD'S PARLIAMENTS

Women legislators occupy only one-tenth on average of the seats in the world's parliaments, according to new figures released today in Beijing by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the world organization of parliaments.

Women parliamentarians meeting for one day on the eve of the 96th Inter-Parliamentary Conference, were told that the average proportion of women in the world's upper and lower Houses of Parliament is only 10.4 percent today -- down one percent over the last 12 months (11.3 percent in mid-1995), and down nearly one-third from the all-time high of 14.8 percent recorded in 1988.

The Nordic countries continue to elect the most women to parliament (Sweden, 40.4 %, Norway 39.4%, Finland 33.5%, Denmark 33.0%). Six countries have no women in parliament: Comoros, Djibouti, Kuwait, Mauritania, Papua New Guinea, and the United Arab Emirates. China, which has the largest parliament in the world with close to 3,000 MPs, has twice the world average with 21.0% of women MPs. The United States has just 11.0% in its House of Representatives and 8.0% in the US Senate, and the United Kingdom 9.5% in the House of Commons and 6.9% in the House of Lords. The Russian Federation has 10.2% women in the State Douma (Lower House) but none in the Council of the Federation (its Upper House), following the most recent elections in the country in December 1995.

The IPU advocates “partnership” between men and women in politics in the belief that democracy will only assume true significance when political policies and national legislation are decided upon jointly between men and women in the interests of both halves of the population.

The Women Parliamentarians Meeting, taking place exactly one year to the day after the IVth World Conference on Women, is looking into what concrete measures parliaments can take to ensure that the World Conference's results are effectively followed up. The meeting is focusing on two critical areas of concern identified by the World Conference -- women as victims of poverty and extreme poverty and key actors in its eradication, and women's participation in politics. The results of the day's debate on these points will be presented to the IPU's Council (governing body) at the end of the Beijing Inter-Parliamentary Conference, on 21 September.

The Meeting was chaired by Mrs Chen Muhua, the Vice-Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, who also presided over the Beijing Women's Conference.

Mrs Chen told the meeting that although one year has passed since the World Conference, “looking around the whole world, the phenomena of women being discriminated against, oppressed or even trampled upon still exist; different types of barriers affecting women's status are far from being removed”. She said that “persistent efforts” on the part of women were still needed to “turn legal provisions for gender equality into actual fact”.

“It is a long-term and arduous task to carry forward the cause of women's progress, for which we women parliamentarians have great responsibilities,” Mrs Chen said. “Our meeting itself is an in-depth publicity of the idea of equality between men and women and of the further elimination of discrimination against women. It is also a meeting urging the international community and governments of all countries to live up to their commitments made at the World Conference on Women.”

The President of the IPU Council, Dr Ahmed Fathy Sorour, who is also President of the Egyptian People's Assembly, told the women parliamentarians that the meeting was a “clear signal” of the commitment of the Inter-Parliamentary Union “to make a significant contribution to the follow-up of the Beijing Platform for Action”.

Recalling that poverty was the first area of concern covered in the Platform for Action, Dr Sorour said that studies show that “women are often more drastically affected than men by poverty and extreme poverty” and that “women can play a decisive role to eradicate it”. He said the problems of poverty and extreme poverty deserved “strong action by both governments and parliaments”, and called on the women MPs to identify “creative ways and means to face this phenomenon and build on every positive experience”.

Noting the decline in the percentage of women in politics world-wide, Dr Sorour recalled that the IPU was currently carrying out a survey on women in political parties and about electoral systems and procedures affecting women's chances to become elected representatives and about the positions of leadership held by women in parliament. The results of this survey will be presented to an IPU symposium in New Delhi next February, on “Towards Partrnership between Men and Women”.

“I know that you will be finalizing preparations for this event which, I trust, will change old patterns of thinking and find ways to ensure that political responsibilities are shared more equitably,” Dr Sorour said.

The chairperson of the IPU's Co-ordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians, Mrs Faiza Kefi (Tunisia), said that the New Delhi Symposium would be “an excellent opportunity to open up new avenues towards equality and partnership between men and women”. She expressed the hope that men as well as women parliamentarians would take part in the New Delhi Symposium so as to “promote a real dialogue between men and women and together create a strategy which would result not only in more women entering politics but also more occupying responsible positions”.

Mrs Patricia Licuanan, an expert from the Philippines at in the Beijing World Conference and former Chairperson of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, told the Women Parliamentarians Meeting that “nowhere is the gap between de jure and de facto equality between men and women more obvious than in political decision-making. The reasons for the serious under-representation of women in the political arena are custom and tradition that define the public sphere as the male domain while relegating the women to the private domestic sphere. For these reasons, political parties rarely recruit female candidates and women are not motivated to run for public office.”

She said that increasing the number of women in political leadership is not an end in itself. “It is not only a matter of equity or justice or good democratic practice. ... The point of having more women in public office is that they bring different perceptions, experiences and priorities into the decision-making process.”