Official says women are making uneven gains globally in efforts to win positions in government

Women making uneven gains in politics globally

WASHINGTON — Despite female candidates’ overwhelming success in primary elections Tuesday night, a State Department official said Wednesday that women seeking government positions are making uneven gains across the globe.

Melanne Verveer, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues, told a House subcommittee that women are half the world’s population but hold fewer than one-fifth of positions in national governments.

“All too often, important decisions that affect women, their families and their societies are made without their ever having a voice,” Verveer said.

Verveer said women have made inroads at the local level, particularly in India, where they make up about 40 percent of all elected representatives in villages and municipal councils. She also noted successes in Kuwait, where four women were elected to parliament last year — a first in the country. Women in Kuwait have had the right to vote and run for office since 2005.

Quotas within Iraq and Afghanistan’s constitutions have helped pave the way for female politicians in the war-torn countries, Verveer said. But the gains are fragile, she said, as women face threats and put their lives on the line to visit their constituents.

The political improvements have to be nurtured “or women will risk seeing them erased or eroded,” she said.

Women won Senate nominations in four states on Tuesday, outright nominations for governor in two states, and a commanding edge for a gubernatorial nomination in a third state.

Rep. Lynn Woosley, D-Calif., said women still have a ways to go in the U.S., where they hold about one-sixth of the seats in the House and the Senate.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., noted the progress women made in his state with Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina winning the GOP nominations for governor and Senate.

“I don’t think that would have happened 20 years ago,” Rohrabacher said.