Women held over 16 per cent of parliamentary seats for the first time in 2005. Pro-active measures proved decisive in many countries.
A very encouraging picture of the status of women in national parliaments emerged in March when the IPU released its annual statistical analysis on the occasion of the fiftieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women.
The participation of women in national parliaments increased dramatically in 2005, with a worldwide average of 16.3 per cent - a 50 per cent increase over the past decade. More than 20 per cent of parliamentarians elected during the year were women. Setting another record, in 20 parliaments women reached the target of 30 per cent of seats that had been set in 1995 during the Forth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing.
The year 2005 also saw tremendous progress in post-conflict countries such as Afghanistan, Burundi, Iraq, and Liberia, where women had previously been excluded or marginalized from political life. In another historic victory, women were granted the right to vote and stand for election to national office in Kuwait.
Though generally rosy, this global picture comes with many qualifiers. First and foremost, women, who account for roughly half of the world's population, remain dramatically underrepresented in national parliaments and at other levels of government. Several imbalances remain both between and within regions. And most gains tend to be concentrated in a relatively small number of countries.
As the IPU analysis of the 2005 data shows, one important factor that accounts for much of the increase in the number of women parliamentarians in recent years has been the more frequent use of special measures, including quotas - either in the form of reserved seats, electoral quotas or voluntary party quotas. Another contributing factor appears to have been the type of electoral system: women tend to fare better under proportional electoral systems than under majoritarian (first-passed-the-post) systems.
As important as quotas have proven, however, the decade-long progress of women in national politics can also be attributed to some extent to the pressure of the international system as well as to more local economic and social changes. During the decade under review, the IPU, the United Nations and a myriad of other agencies have worked hard to mobilize pressure from the outside and to sensitize the world’s public opinion to the rights of women in all spheres of life. At the national level, the growth of women’s organizations as well as the deepening of globalization (with its attendant levelling pressures) have also helped women gain recognition of their rights in society and, by extension, in political life.
