Women still lag in business, politics: UN

United Nations, Mar 8: Despite the recent election of women heads of state in Chile, Liberia and Germany, women are making scant progress around the world in getting into leadership positions in business, Government and academia, a UN report said.

While women have made steady gains in participation in parliaments, business management, the media and the academic world, the pace is still too slow, even in wealthy nations, said the report prepared by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to mark International Women's Day today.

''Serious obstacles remain that hinder women's effective participation,'' said the report, which called for increased participation to now be translated into influence in the decisionmaking process.

Angela Merkel was sworn in as Germany's chancellor in November, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was inaugurated as Liberia's president in January and Michelle Bachelet is to be sworn in as Chile's president on Saturday.

But a handful of women leaders attending a meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women said the trio's successes masked the many challenges they had overcome and the long and arduous preparations.

''Behind that progress, we can see that it takes time to get prepared, it takes time to have such awareness and openness in a society at the political level,'' said Rachel Mayanja, the special UN adviser on the advancement of women.

Even after winning a leadership post, women leaders face harsher judgment than their male counterparts when they make mistakes, simply because they are women, Mayanja told a news conference.

Among the obstacles facing women, Annan's report said, are their underrepresentation in such male-dominated fields as the military and foreign affairs and the persistence of stereotypical attitudes and behavior toward women.

Even though more women are being elected to parliaments every year, they soon discover 'the absence of gender-sensitive enabling environments' in the world's legislatures, it said.

And while success in business, as in politics, requires long preparations, too few young girls are entering fields of study such as business management and Government, said Anne Kathrine Slungard, a director of Norwegian oil and gas group Statoil.

REUTERS