By Bill Lambrecht
Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Women had a big day in primaries Tuesday, defeating men in high-profile races in Arkansas, California and South Carolina.

But it’s far different in most of the world, where women occupy few seats in most parliaments and are shut out of power in dangerous places like Afghanistan.

“When women are empowered to engage in the political process, governments are more effective and responsive to their people and nations are more stable, peaceful and prosperous,” Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, said this afternoon.

Carnahan made his comments at a standing room only hearing of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee he chairs called to examine ongoing problems around the world of women gaining political power.

Part of the hearing focused on Afghanistan. Carnahan observed that at a national meeting of Afghan leaders last week aimed at finding peace in that troubled land, women were few and none were among the main speakers.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, the ranking Republican on the panel, went so far as to say the extremist Taliban’s treatment of Afghan women “is equivalent to the Nazis in terms of women’s rights … We can’t turn a blind eye to the monstrous treatment of women around the world if we expect to move the world forward.”

Melanne Verveer, the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, said in her testimony that Obama administration is well aware of the plight of Afghan women. She said women there who do hold political office are targeted for attack and understand when they leave Kabul for their home provinces that they might not live to return.

“What happens to the women of Afghanistan is a predicter of what happens in the future,” she said.

http://interact.stltoday.com/blogzone/political-fix/political-fix/2010/06/russ-carnahan-women-in-power-translates-to-better-democracies/