Number of women in senior positions 'still very low'

Malta had one of the lowest rates of women in the highest administrative posts as compared to other EU countries, according to an expert in social politics.

With an EU average of 25 per cent of women occupying the highest non-political positions, Maltese women in similar positions only amounted to eight per cent in 2009, Elizabeth Meehan said.

Quoting EU statistics, she said that figures of female participation in high-ranking positions had improved since Malta joined the EU but were still very low.

Prof. Meehan was the keynote speaker at the Agatha Barbara And The Josephine Burns Debono Memorial Lecture organised by the public policy department within the University of Malta to mark Women's Day.

Speaking about women in the judiciary on a local and EU level, Prof. Meehan pointed out that, so far, there never was a woman appointed president of the European Court of Justice. Also, there were only six women in the European Court of Justice - 22 per cent - and one of them is Maltese Judge Ina Cremona.

Female judges were often "ghettoised" into courts that dealt with soft issues, such as Family Court, and this limited their interaction with EU law, she said.

Even in the European Council, senior and junior female ministers were more "likely to hold socio-cultural portfolios rather than economics and finance, transport, foreign affairs and justice," she said.

She briefly touched upon the subject of gender quotas. These were accepted by the old member states but not in the new Eastern European countries because it was "associated with the previous communist systems", Prof. Meehan said.