June 24, International Day of Women in Diplomacy: The women who shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
HIBAPRESS-RABAT-ONU
The leading role played by Eleanor Roosevelt as President of the Drafting Committee of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been amply demonstrated. But other women also contributed substantially to shaping this text. Some of them, as well as their contributions to the consideration of women’s rights in the Universal Declaration
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT (United States)
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT holding a poster of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Lake Success, New York State, November 1949. UN Photo
Eleanor Roosevelt of the United States holding a poster of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Lake Success, New York, November 1949
In 1946, Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States of America from 1993 to 1945, was appointed as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly by American President Harry S. Truman. She served as the first Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights and played a key role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As tensions between West and East grew, Eleanor Roosevelt used her immense prestige and credibility with both superpowers to set the drafting process on a path to success. In 1968, he was awarded the United Nations Human Rights Prize posthumously.
HANSA MEHTA (India)
UN Photo/Marvin Bolotsky India’s Hansa Mehta, left, with Carols Garcia Bauer, representative of Guatemala, before a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Lake Success, New York, June 1949
Indian national Hansa Mehta, the only other woman delegate to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1947 to 1948, was a strong campaigner for women’s rights in India and abroad. He is generally credited with transforming the phrase “all men are born free and equal” into “all human beings are born free and equal” in the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
MINERVA BERNARDINO (Dominican Republic) Photo: UN Minerva Bernardino, originally from the Dominican Republic, with the Chinese Yizhen New, members of the Sub-Commission on the Status of Women of the Commission on Human Rights. New York, April 1946
A diplomat and feminist leader from the Dominican Republic, Minerva Bernardino played a key role in the campaign to include “equality of men and women” in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Along with other women from Latin America (the Brazilian Bertha Lutz and the Uruguayan Isabel de Vidal), she also had a resounding voice in advocating for the introduction of women’s rights and -discrimination based on sex in the Charter of the United Nations, which, in 1945, became the first international agreement to recognize the equal rights of men and women.
BEGUM SHAISTA IKRAMULLAH (Pakistan) Photo: UN Begum Shaista Ikramullah, delegate of Pakistan to the Third Committee of the United Nations. Here in the General Assembly Hall in December 1956, New York. UN Photo
As a delegate to the Third Committee on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Issues of the General Assembly, which in 1948 spent 81 meetings discussing the draft Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Pakistani Begum Shaista Ikramullah advocated an emphasis on freedom, equality and choice in the Declaration. She championed the idea of introducing Article 16 on equal rights in marriage, which she saw as a way to combat child and forced marriage.
BODIL BEGTRUP (Denmark) UN Photo/Kari Berggrav Danish Bodil Begtrup (left), with American Dorothy Kenyon, before the opening of the second session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Lake Success, New York, January 1948. UN Photo/Kari Berggrav
As Chair of the Sub-Commission on the Status of Women in 1946, and then of the Commission on the Status of Women in 1947, Danish Bodil Begtrup recommended that the Universal Declaration use the term “all” or “each » to speak of rights holders, rather than the expression “all men”. She also proposed including minority rights in Article 26 relating to the right to education, but her ideas were too controversial at the time. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes no explicit mention of minority rights, but guarantees equal rights to everyone.
MARIE-HÉLÈNE LEFAUCHEUX (France) United Nations Frenchwoman Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux (left), President of the Commission on the Status of Women; the British Mary Sutherland; and the American Olive Remington Goldman. Lake Success, New York, January 1948. UN Photo/MB
As President of the Commission on the Status of Women in 1948, Frenchwoman Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux succeeded in introducing the notion of non-discrimination based on sex into article 2. The final text of the article declares that “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms proclaimed in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, including race, color, sex, language, religion, political opinion or any other opinion, national or social origin, fortune, birth or any other situation”.
EVDOKIA URALOVA (Belarus) UN Photo/Kari Berggrav Before the first meeting of the second session of the Commission on the Status of Women, India’s Begum Hamid Ali (left) speaks to Evdokia I. Uralova of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus (center) and his interpreter. Lake Success, New York, January 1948.
Evdokia Uralova, a native of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, was Rapporteur of the Commission on the Status of Women to the Commission on Human Rights in 1947. She vigorously advocated equal pay for women. Thanks to it, article 23 declares that “All have the right, without any discrimination, to equal pay for equal work”. Like Fryderyka Kalinowska, originally from Poland, and Elizavieta Popova, originally from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, she also emphasized the rights of nationals of non-self-governing territories.
LAKSHMI MENON (India) UN Photo At the Palais de Chaillot, Indian Lakshmi Menon addresses the General Assembly before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Paris, France, December 9, 1948
Lakshmi Menon, India’s delegate to the Third Committee of the General Assembly in 1948, strongly advocated the repetition of non-discrimination on the basis of sex throughout the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the mention of “equal rights of women and men” in the preamble. She was also a fierce believer in the “universality” of human rights, strongly opposing the concept of “colonial relativism” which tended to deny the human rights of people in countries under colonial rule. If women and peoples under colonial rule were not explicitly mentioned in the Universal Declaration, they would not be considered included in the term “everyone”, she argued.
