DE KLERK LAMENTS LOW WOMEN REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT
By Augetto Graig, Windhoek

November 24, 2003 – (The Namibian - Windhoek) THE head of Women's Action for Development (WAD), Veronica De Klerk, has expressed concern over the slow pace of integrating women into regional parliaments.

"With regard to the SADC region, I wish to observe that of all the countries in the SADC region, only two have neared the 29 per cent mark for women's representation in their parliaments, while the rest have only about 15 per cent representation of women," De Klerk said in an address to a recent SADC women's conference.

"The sad reality is that, according to the UN Fact Sheet, women have not yet achieved equality with men in any country in the world, while women only hold approximately 12 per cent of the seats in the world's parliaments," De Klerk said.

She said it was not defensible that more than half of a country's economically productive people were kept out of the mainstream economy just because they were women.

Foreign Affairs Minister Hidipo Hamutenya said women's contribution to development was central and that Namibia had made a number of tangible advances towards genuine gender equality.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200311240514.html