Pacific region

Across the Pacific less than 5 per cent of parliamentarians are women.

While that figure is much higher in Australa, around 30 per cent, Ms Stott-Despoja says the difficulties faced by women elsewhere in the region are much greater ... such as discrimination and corruption.

She recently led a delegation to Tonga to meet women in politics from around the region and told Karen Barlow it was a big sucess.

The Pacific region has the lowest level of representation of women in national legislatures, a tag that it would like to shake off.

But one woman who has made it into her national parliament is Charmaine Scotty.

She recently became only the second woman to win a seat in Nauru's assembly since independence in 1968.

We invite our users to read the full article published October 24, 2013