Women must be fully included in public life for democracy to function properly and Bermuda offers a potent example of benefits of female political leadership, Cherie Booth-Blair said yesterday.

Ms Blair, a Queen's Counsel and the spouse of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, spoke at the closing luncheon of the Women in Public Life conference which took place at the Hamilton Princess over the weekend.

Looking at Bermuda's Cabinet - with five of 12 Cabinet Ministers who are women - “it seemed like they were all women, although, I know there are a few men,” she said.

The comment prompted Minister Randy Horton, in attendance at the luncheon, to stand and deliver an impromptu wave to the crowd. “Girls, you always want to have a pretty face in the Cabinet,” Ms Blair quipped in reply. But she soon turned to matters more serious.

There is a long way to go before the goal of full participation of women in public life is realised, she said. Women represent half of the workforce in the UK at the moment, Ms Blair noted. “That is more than double the number of 23 years ago,” she said.

“The trend will continue. In the next ten years, two million more jobs will be created in the British economy and 80 percent of those jobs will be occupied by women.”

But while the goals of equal pay for equal work were enshrined in legislation in 1970, women still earn just 82 percent of the salary men do for the same job.

Politically, women are best represented in local-level public bodies in the UK, Ms Blair added, making up 50 percent of school governors, for example.

“At a regional and national level the situation is less positive,” she said. “Of 1000 public bodies across the UK with 30,000 appointments... only 34 percent of the appointments go to women.”

And only two percent are held by women of ethnic minorities.

The situation is unacceptable as these bodies must better reflect the society's they serve in order to be effective, Ms Blair added.

But women still suffer from the perception that their primary role is as caregivers who raise children.

As one moves up the ranks professionally and politically, fewer and fewer women are seen in high position, she said using statistics from English politics and law. Only 240 women have served as MPs in the English House of Commons in the last 80 years out of total of 4,500 MPs, she said.

In 1979 there were more MPs named John than there were women. The record has improved somewhat in recent years as women now comprise a third of the Cabinet and a third of all Ministries - the highest in UK history.

In the legal profession, while record numbers of women are entering practice, fewer women become partners in their firms than their male counterparts and there are far too few women at high levels of the judiciary, she said.

Having female judges is of the utmost importance both nationally and internationally, however, she added, particularly in the area of sexual violence.

And making the judiciary more reflective of the community as a whole is essential to the perception of justice as well as carrying it out.

“It will be a wider variety of perspectives into the decision making,” Ms Blair said, as opposed to the current situation where male judges often view women as all good or all bad.

Ms Blair pointed out sex crimes were only recently added to the category of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Hague at the insistence of a female, South African judge working on the Rwanda tribunal.

Systematic rape is all too often used as a tool of warfare but had been viewed in the past almost as a necessary evil, she added. But that perception is changing and the Rwanda tribunal succeeded in getting the systematic sexual violence added to the indictment of war criminals alongside genocide.

“It was one of the most important decisions in the history of women and jurisprudence,” Ms Blair said.

Closing the conference, Ms Blair made a personal tribute to Premier Jennifer Smith and presented her with a gift from the conference delegates.

Ms Blair is expected to remain in Bermuda for the next week and travelled to the Island with her three children and her mother.