Women in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand are not as well-represented in politics but have benefited from economic growth while China has lagged in the advancement of women despite its rapid economic strides, said Erna Witoelar, UN special ambassador for Millennium Development Goals.

The UN Millennium Development Goals oversees a series of development targets for countries to attain by 2015, including promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women.

Witoelar, speaking on the sidelines of an Asian parliamentary conference in Manila, said India and the Philippines both enjoyed a high proportion of women within their legislatures and in local positions.

But she said this did not mean that women in the Philippines were better off than in other countries. She said Filipina women were still subject to economic hardships with many migrating to cities or other countries to find jobs.

Ordinary women in Malaysia and Thailand had benefited from the general economic growth, Witoelar said, but remarked "despite higher economic growth, women in leadership positions are still low."

This was also true in Indonesia despite a rule allocating parliament seats for women. Witoelar, an Indonesian, said none of the political parties there were able to meet quotas for female candidates in coming polls in April.

China was moving "slower in the advancement of women," the ambassador said, adding that "it is still very much a male-dominated leadership as well as a male-dominated ordinary life."

She cited the one-child policy in China which led many families to abort their female fetuses in favor of male infants.

But China was still ahead of countries in South Asia like Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, she added.

Although some of these countries already had female heads of state, "for ordinary women, there are quite a lot of social and cultural constraints," Witoelar said without elaborating.