I congratulate Minister Josefina Bilbao and the National Women's Service for organizing this important event, and regret that I cannot join you in person. As we will discuss and affirm during this Second Summit of the Americas, the march of democracy across the Americas in the last two decades means that all citizens of this hemisphere, with the exception of Cuba, live in vibrant, open societies, free from dictatorship or repression by unelected, military authorities. Peace has been consolidated throughout the Americas, with the end of civil strife in Central America. We now must turn our attention and our collective efforts to the next generation of reforms in Education, Deepening Democracy, Economic Integration, and Eliminating Poverty and Discrimination. Women are more than fifty percent of the voters, the consumers, the heads of household, and the educators of our children, from the first moments of a child's life throughout the many phases of life.
Women have roles and responsibilities that form the very fabric of society.
We shape lives and are determinants of history, the history of our families, our communities and our countries. However, many of our contributions are frequently undervalued or taken for granted. In the Americas today, the reality is that women are not able to fully participate in the political, economic, and social lives of our countries because legal, economic and societal barriers prevent us from doing so. There is a great disparity between the representation of women in our legislatures and the make-up of the electorate. Today, only eleven percent of elected legislators in this hemisphere are women.