Women are the majority in the Serbian society, but a rather quiet one, since the percentage of their influence is still very low, it was said Saturday at the main session of a two-day International Women Leaders Conference, organized by the Serbian-American Women's Leadership Network and the Serbian Unity Congress.

The conference is taking place Friday and Saturday, under the auspices of Serbian parliament Speaker Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic, who said that it was necessary for women to be represented in greater number everywhere where decisions were made, be it politics, economy or other spheres of life.

“The role of women in every developed society is indispensable to the extent that the degree of a society's development is in direct proportion to the number of women in managerial positions,” said Djukic-Dejanovic.

She said that the participation of women in Serbian governmental offices was about 22 percent and that the statistics should be improved.

Democratic Party (DS) MP and Vice President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Natasa Vuckovic said that it was very important that the Serbian parliament should have as many women as possible, as they would manage to change many things.

Vice President of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) Diana Vukomanovic stated that the 3.8 million women in Serbia were a powerful force on the political, economic and social scene, but despite being the majority population, they were still only a “silent majority.”

Ex-vice president in Bundestag and Senior Political Advisor for South Eastern Europe Petra Blass Rafajlovski said that the goal of the women leaders network was to increase the number of ambitious women and that great attention should be paid to everyday life of women so that they could be able to take any action.

Anita McBride, who served as assistant to president George W. Bush and chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush, said it was imperative in politics that women should be connecting, helping each other out.