Women have secured more places in parliaments and governments around the world in the past three years, a new study has shown, but officials said progress is slow and only quota systems will speed it up.
Nearly 18 percent of the world's lawmakers are women and 16.1 percent 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 two percent higher than a 2005 study.
"Women continue to gain ground in politics," Anders Johnsson, secretary general of the Geneva-based Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU), told a news conference.
"But if you ask me, it is very slow progress," he said.
The small east African state of Rwanda remained atop the table for female representation in parliament, with almost 49 percent.
Second was Sweden, with 47 percent, and third Finland, with 41.5 percent.
At the bottom of the table were the Gulf Arab states of 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 there were two countries - Finland and Norway - where women take up more than half of ministerial positions, according to the map produced by the IPU and the United Nations.
NO PARITY BEFORE 2050
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 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.
"Of all those countries that have more than 30 percent (female representation in parliament), all but three of them have introduced quotas," he added, identifying the three as Finland, Denmark and Cuba.
But he said quotas were "just a temporary measure, it is just to get us there, over the hump, so to speak. It is not something that anyone, women or men, would like to see as a perpetual measure."
Carolyn Hannan, director of the UN 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.
Top-placed Rwanda has a quota system, but Johnsson said it was also one of several African countries where women assumed prominent roles in society while men fought in conflicts, then refused to surrender them.
Others included Mozambique, Uganda and Burundi.
Although women held more government posts, the speakers said they were mainly being given "soft" positions in areas like social and family affairs or education.
Few were finance ministers and only six had jobs related to defence.
"We need to focus on turning that table," Jamaican parliamentarian Sharon Hay Webster said.
Reuters
