Women in the spotlight for one day
PARIS (AP) - A good many countries celebrated International Women's Day on Monday by holding special events but much remains to be done for the rights, the health and the education of half of the human race. Women's rights and democracy are one and the same thing, said Shirin Ebadi before the United Nations in Geneva. The first Nobel Prize winner from a Muslim country, the lawyer and human rights activist was dressed in black as a sign of "mourning for women's rights in Iran", she explained. Beside her, the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal (ICT), Carla Del Ponte, emphasized that "in most democratic societies, in a single generation, women have had an opportunity to fulfil their professional aspirations, but the same has not happened in the rest of the world". A study by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, representing 142 parliaments, shows that the proportion of women in parliaments has reached a record level of 15.3%, with a high of 49% for Rwanda compared to 15.1% on average for Africa, and a very honourable 45% for Sweden, as opposed to 6% on average for the Arab countries.
Yahoo Actualités France – 8 March 2004

Rwanda heads the list for women in legislative chambers
With a proportion of 48.8% and 39 of its 80 seats held by women, the Parliament of Rwanda has the highest proportion of women members in the world. The changes following the 2003 elections means that this war-torn central African country has dislodged the traditional winner: Sweden, with 45.3%.

The reason for the number of women in the lower Chamber of Rwanda is to a large extent the system of quotas; but not entirely. In the new Constitution, a mechanism was introduced to reserve 30% of the seats for women. "People put their trust in women above and beyond the quota, as they are aware that they have a significant role to play", said Kareen Jabre Officer-in-Charge of the Inter-Parliamentary Union's Programme for the Promotion of Partnership between Men and Women. The IPU membership counts 138 parliaments; the organisation was responsible for preparing the statistics.

In addition to Rwanda, Jabre draw attention to similar experiences in Muslim countries such as Morocco, where women account for 10% of the parliament thanks to the quota or Jordan where 6 Deputies (5.5%) were elected "where previously there had not been a single one in its parliamentary history".
El País (Spain) – 29 February 2004