Alicia Masoni de Morea, head of Panam Sports' Women in Sport Commission, proposed the statute change at the organisation's General Assembly in Chilean capital Santiago.

Six of the Panam Sports' 16-strong Executive Board are women, meaning that the percentage of female voting members stands at 37.5 per cent.

But Morea claims that the current composition is only "by chance" and insists a new rule needs to be added to the Panam Sports' constitution, replacing the existing statute that rules that "at least three voting members of the Executive Board shall be women".

"The only thing that I am not very happy about is our statutes, we have to change that once and for all," Morea told insidethegames following her presentation at the Panam Sports General Assembly.

"The President [Neven Ilic] values women.

"If he can nominate women he is very happy to do it.

"Now we do have the 30 per cent but only by chance.

"It might not happen at the next election as the only thing we have guaranteed is three women [voting members] because each region has to have at least one woman which makes three.

"But for the whole composition of the Executive Board you need at least five."

Mexico's Jimena Saldaña is the second vice-president of Panam Sports and is among the female voting members on the Executive Board along with Canada's Tricia Smith, Susanne Lyons of the United States, Veda Bruno-Victor of Grenada, Nicole Hoevertsz of Aruba and Guyana's Aliann Pompey who is head of the organisation's Athletes' Commission.

"This time the athlete representative is a woman and there are two women from the American group," added Morea.

"It’s only 30 per cent [that I want added to the statutes] to just show that we are doing something.

"Adding two more women doesn't make much of difference but we have to start and be sure in what we want so by saying this is what it should be then things are going to change.

"I made the proposal and I told them that I would like this to be submitted at the next Panam Sports General Assembly to vote on."

Morea, who is vice-president of the Argentina Olympic Committee, said she was pleased with the increase in the number of female leaders at National Olympic Committees (NOC) with 10 holding the position as President.

Among those include Lyons at the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Smith at the Canadian Olympic Committee and Diane Henderson at the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee.

But Morea insists more needs to be done to ensure that further women are challenging for high-ranking positions.

"The real improvements that you can see is in our continent is that we have 10 women Presidents and nine women secretary generals," added Morea.

"They are trying but it is not easy.

"It depends on the NOC.

"If they don't send candidates you can't have so many women on the Board but if you make it mandatory you will find them.

"You have got to show by actions, not by words.

"There is a thing that the IOC [International Olympic Committee] says and that's lead by example."