President Engvig, ladies and gentlemen - I believe there are a few gentlemen in the room! - dear friends, I am very happy to be here today. Thank you for inviting me and many thanks to your board member, Lorella Zanardo, for putting us in contact. It is great to see so many motivated, passionate women from all over the world come together to help one another achieve more. I believe this is a wonderful task - helping one another! We need to get rid of the glass ceiling and organisations like WIN are playing an important role in enabling us to do so.

I am also glad that the eighteenth global WINConference is taking place in Rome and would like to extend my warmest welcome to you all. Italy has made a lot of progress in terms of women's empowerment over the last decades, but we still have a long way to go to ensure women find jobs, keep those jobs when they have children and earn as much as their male colleagues. This is not the case now here. And a lot more must be done to combat domestic violence and the sexism which is still rampant in public discourse and in the way women are depicted by the media.

Let me begin by telling you a little about myself. I grew up in a small town in the hills of central Italy, in a large family where I was the eldest daughter. There were five of us. Despite the rather traditional context I grew up in, from a very early age I tended to dispute my elders' authority and the way things worked in our family. Why were my sister and I asked to lay the table while our brothers played? What was the reason? Why the difference? Why were we the only ones clearing up after meals? These were the questions my sister and I asked. We therefore decided to go on a strike. My mother - a teacher - was desperate. In the end we won and our brothers had to share the household tasks. You can imagine how happy about this my brothers were!

Though they still hold it against me, I think that, deep down inside, they are also grateful. Their wives are also grateful! They grew up thinking that it was normal for boys to share the housework and to look after the younger members of the family. Too often, when we talk about women's empowerment and gender equality, we forget about the men! We cannot forget about the men. Yet, without them, we are just preaching to the converted. Without them, we simply won't succeed in enabling women to balance work with their family lives, in ensuring our daughters believe in themselves and in ending violence against women and girls.

At the age of nineteen, having finished high school and getting ready to start studying law at university in Rome, I decided to travel to Venezuela to work in a farm. You can imagine how happy my parents were about this! My father was against it, while my mother negotiated as she understood why I wanted to do it. I left and went to a finca de arroz, where I realised that I wanted to change things and to be part of the change!

After graduating, I won a scholarship and joined the United Nations, where I then spent twenty-five years working for FAO, the World Food Programme and, for the last fifteen years, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. As a UN spokesperson, I undertook missions to many of the world's trouble spots, from Sudan to Afghanistan, from the Balkans to Iraq. In my country, I worked on a tiny island, Lampedusa, where hundreds of thousands of refugees land. I met men and women who wanted to live in peace. Safety is not a prerogative of the Western world. It is a universal right! In these contexts, I witnessed first-hand how women and girls were the main victims of war and the terrible violence which they are subjected to.

I also realised that women were the most resilient members of society, those who could overcome the violence. As an aid worker, I soon learned that giving food to a woman meant that all the family was fed, that handing women cash grants ensured that the children went to school and that distributing seeds to women resulted in crops to feed the community. It is not the same when you give aid to men, I can assure you.

When we talk about the feminine qualities which help us to lead, we should therefore also bear in mind that women have other, very important characteristics which enable societies to heal and come together again. Just like we should also bear in mind that we should be fighting for the emancipation of all women, including the millions who have no rights. We cannot forget the millions who have no rights at all. And those of us who have high-level careers should not forget that, more often than not, our success depends on the sacrifices made by other women - the babysitters and cleaners who enable us to work. These women are almost always migrants whose own children grow up far away without them, with other people, and see their mothers as cash cards. These women's partners often leave them to start new lives. If we want to achieve female emancipation, we must not forget these women.

Let me return to my story. Almost three years ago, I was in Athens, the Greek capital, on a mission for UNHCR. I was talking to doctors at an NGO clinic, listening to how 50% of their patients were now Greeks, while in the past they had mainly provided assistance to migrants and refugees. Greeks could no longer afford medicines or treatment - Greece, the heart of democracy! Suddenly I heard shouting and went to hear what was going on. It was a group of African men. One of them was wounded and was crying. The others were angry and told him to stop complaining. "You're black", they said, "What do you expect? It's normal to be beaten up here. Don't complain. Stop crying!".

I was shocked. The migrants thought that racist violence was inevitable and that they had to accept it as a fact of life

A few hours later, when I was back in my hotel room writing my notes, the phone rang. The person on the other end of the line was the leader of SEL, a left-wing Italian party. I had met him at a conference and would sometimes call me when there was a migration emergency in his region. He said they were preparing lists of candidates for the elections, which were just a few months away, and asked me to stand. I was not looking for a job. I was happy with mine, so I replied, "Thank you very much" and put the phone down. Then I thought, "Maybe the time has come to give something back to the country which educated me and gave me the values I am proud of. Maybe my international experience can contribute to changing things!". When I returned to Italy, I accepted his offer.

After two months of tough campaigning, travelling across two Italian regions in rented cars and attending meetings in remote towns, sometimes attended by ten people or so and with limited support from the small party I was standing for, I was elected as an independent MP for SEL, then the junior partner in a coalition with the Democratic Party which narrowly won the most seats in Parliament. The second-largest party was the new anti-establishment Five Stars Movement.

Because of this, the leaders of the winning coalition - which lacked enough seats in the Senate to form a majority - decided that they needed to change and to promote new faces. On my second day as an MP, believe it or not, with no prior experience of parliamentary work, I was chosen as the coalition candidate and, a few hours later, I was the President of the Chamber of Deputies!

My dear friends, it has been a learning process and not an easy one, believe me - for good and for bad. My life has changed in so many fundamental ways - starting with my freedom of movement, which is now limited by security concerns. But I want to change things and it's worth it.- I want to make the institution more open, more transparent and closer to citizens. The challenge is to make it more suited to our times.

The Chamber of Deputies Secretary General, the head of the administration, is now a woman, for the first time. Female MPs have set up a new bipartisan Women's Group - a Caucus - whose first meeting was held when President Bachelet of Chile, former head of UN Women, visited the Chamber.

The Chamber now uses social media extensively and a special Committee on Internet rights which I set up has produced a Declaration on the topic. The Declaration stated that fundamental rights should be protected on the Web. As an active social media user, I believe in the potential of these tools to transform the world, including to promote gender equality. However, we need to ensure that our citizens - and youth in particular, who use it much more - use social media responsibly and combat online hate speech. We cannot accept it as part of the game, especially when it is directed against minorities and women.

I believe women's participation in the political process is fundamental if we want to build more equal societies. Given the crisis our political systems are going through, new, credible faces are needed.

At the last elections in 2013, female representation in the Italian Parliament rose to 30%, well above the global average of 22%. It is the highest proportion we have ever reached, even though it is not enough, given that we make up 50% of the population and should represent 50% of MPs. This is why I believe that electoral laws should include quotas - in an ideal society, they would be unnecessary, but as things stand, they are a necessary evil. Without quotas, women do not have access to institutions. Once we achieve equality, we will no longer need them.

In my country, unfortunately, only 47% of women are employed. This is totally unacceptable and requires greater commitment on our part. As the IMF has repeatedly stressed, if more women work, the entire economy - and not only women - benefit. And it is much easier for women who are financially independent to end abusive relationships. If they do not have this possibility, they cannot start new lives.

In my new life as a parliamentary Speaker, I am committed to raising awareness about issues which I am passionate about. Fighting for gender equality is one of them. It is not always an easy task, even when the subjects we tackle appear to be minor or uncontroversial. My native Italian is a heavily gendered language, where high status roles and professions have invariably been masculine - even when those filling them have been women! Female ministers and lawyers are called by the male versions of their roles - il ministro, l'avvocato - while nurses, for example, have always been feminine, as have schoolteachers.

I have tried to change this mindset as I believe that language codes reflect power structures. In the beginning, I was made fun of because I insisted on being called 'la Presidente', 'Madam President', and not 'Mr. President'. Is this strange? Am I 'Mr. President'? This was considered unacceptable! I therefore decided to be ironic about it - when some male members of parliament insist on calling me 'Mr. President' - 'Signor Presidente' - during plenary debates, I reply "Thank you, Madam MP', and everyone laughs.

My battle to combat gender stereotypes has also led me to tackle advertising and the sexist way women are portrayed in the media in my country. I object to seeing ads where families are gathered at the dinner table and the mother is the only person cooking or serving everyone else, where semi-naked young women are used to sell toothpaste or cars - where is the link? - and where men drive sports cars in empty landscapes, while women crash their cars while parking. Why? Do men not crash their cars? Why, I wonder, do companies not invest in smarter, more ironic campaigns instead of replicating stereotypes which are no longer suited to our times? I strongly believe that companies can play a major role in moving society forward - both in the public image they project and in their workplace practices.

You asked me to mention the issues I am passionate about. Because of my background, I have been and continue to be passionate about the issue of migration. In a globalised world, as the economy grows or shrinks in different places, people move. Is this difficult to accept? Sometimes you have growth in a country and this is a pull factor. Their movement contributes to development, but decision-makers struggle to manage migration and to see it as an opportunity, even when the data shows that we need migration for demographic reasons and to ensure the sustainability of our economies and pension funds. The economists say we need it, but decision-makers can't manage economic migration.

Forced migrants - including refugees - are also on the move. They are forced to leave. They cannot choose. They have been arriving on our shores for years, but now they are also arriving in Europe in large numbers, crossing the sea and our land borders. This has now finally turned the issue into a European one. Before it was considered an Italian problem or a Maltese problem. Now that they have reached the heart of Europe, it is a European problem. For too many years, Italy was alone on the frontline, dealing with the influx of boat people and the many deaths among the migrants and refugees trying to reach our shores.

As a prominent public figure, I have been trying to counter claims that, in a country of sixty million, we are being "invaded" by just over 100,000 boat people, just like we cannot claim that Europe is being overwhelmed by refugees when Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey alone host four million Syrian refugees fleeing the war in their country. How can we ignore what these countries are doing? They have kept their borders open.

I have also taken a stand against the racism and xenophobia which many public figures in Italy engage in. I am convinced that we must stop tolerating intolerance!

My expertise on the subject has also led me to look at the refugee crisis unfolding in Europe as an opportunity. This may strike you as strange. However, it is evident - as I just mentioned - that no single state can address the crisis alone. All countries worldwide are either countries of origin, transit or destination. No country is not involved. We need a real common European asylum system. I believe the current moment offers us the chance to steer Europe towards a new phase. We need a new EU, an EU 2.0, as the younger generation would say. A more united, stronger Europe, which is able to respond to its citizens' needs and to act as a global player. We need to work towards the establishment of the United States of Europe.

Finally, I am profoundly convinced that all women - from all walks of life - must act to remove the obstacles which they have met over the course of their careers because of their gender, without delegating this important task to others. This is the only way we can achieve better results. Our personal commitment to be engaged is needed.

I hope that many of you are passionate about the things which drive me to work long hours, travel extensively in Italy and abroad, and make sacrifices in my personal life. I hope that, just like I was inspired by many strong women, I have given you some food for thought. I look forward to meeting you again.

Thank you for the attention.