Women must be part of new Mideast: Clinton

If women are left out of the democratic transformation, she said, the country “will not be a true democracy.”

Clinton spoke at a high-level U.N. event Monday to promote greater political participation of women at all levels of government. According to a 2010 U.N. report, women hold an average of 17 percent of the seats in parliament, and only seven of 150 elected heads of state and 11 of 192 heads of government are women.

Clinton called the global effort to give women a much greater voice in public life “one of the great pieces of unfinished business in the 21st century.”

“If we want a safe, secure, prosperous, peaceful future,” she said, “women must be equal partners and free to realize their own God-given potential.”

Sitting beside Brazil's President Dilma Roussef, with other former and current women presidents on the panel and in the audience, Clinton said “clearly as someone who tried to be a president, it is very encouraging to see those who actually end up as a president.”

Clinton, who has been a leading global campaigner for women's equality, said it wasn't enough for the women leaders at the U.N. to just continue their own work at home.

“It's also important that we reach out to the new emerging democracies and societies, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, where women have marched and demonstrated, blogged, and put their lives on the line for a future that includes them, their families, their communities, and their countries,” she said.

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