Italy lags far behind other countries in the West in regards to the number of women elected to parliament, according to a report presented to the United Nations here on Monday.
A ranking drawn up by Inter-Parliamentary Union put Italy in 89th place among 187 of the UN's 191 members, just ahead of Indonesia, the world's biggest Muslim country. Women represent only 11.5% of Italian House members and 8.1% of the Senate.
The IPU report was presented here at one of the various initiatives organised to mark world Women's Day, March 8.
Among those on hand was Italy's equal opportunities minister, Stefania Prestigiacomo, who recalled that Italy will stage general election April 9 and 10 without the woman's quota of candidates she had fought hard to push through parliament.
The bill was only passed by the Senate and originally proposed that at least one third of the candidates put
forward by political parties for elections should be women. Much of the opposition to the bill came from the
minister's own conservative coalition.
At the top of the INU list for female representation were Rwanda and Sweden, both above 45%, followed by Norway, Finland and Denmark. At the bottom of the list were Iran and other Muslim Gulf states as well as a number of tiny countries in Polynesia.
