“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home,” said Anna Fierst, quoting her great-grandmother Eleanor Roosevelt’s speech of 1958, in which she highlighted the number of ordinary citizens determined to be active in their local neighbourhoods, schools, and factories.
“Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere,” she continued, highlighting the vital importance of the rule of law and civil society activism today in protection of human rights.
Chequered progress
Ms. Fierst said that had Mrs. Roosevelt lived to 140 years, she “would not have been surprised to see the up and down progress” of women’s rights since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was proclaimed in 1948.
But she would have been discouraged by people “hiding behind technology”. The famous First Lady and human rights advocate eschewed the telephone and television during her life saying that “when people get on TV, they stop talking to each other”.
Eleanor Roosevelt was one of several women highlighted at an event on Women Who Shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights organized by the UN Department of Global Communications and UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) on the sidelines of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which wraps up on Friday in New York.
Gertrude Mongella was the Secretary-General of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, which served as a turning point for the global agenda on gender equality, and which has a direct relationship with the CSW.
‘Mama Beijing’
“Mama Beijing” as she is called, discussed how the decisions made thirty years ago have been implemented by countries, allowing women today to break taboos and move into leadership roles unimagined then, such as holding the office of defence minister.
“We are walking. We have to continue walking. Sometimes it becomes slower when you have walked a long distance, but you cannot stop walking,” Mrs. Mongella said, highlighting the work done to inform and restructure laws and societal norms.
However, nearly a quarter of all governments worldwide reported backlash against women’s rights in 2024, according to UN Women’s latest report Women’s Rights in Review 30 Years After Beijing. This includes higher levels of discrimination, weaker legal protections, and reduced funding for programmes and institutions that support and protect women.
India’s diplomatic pioneer
Among others in attendance were Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, who in 1953 became the first woman President of the UN General Assembly, just one of a series of cracks she made in the proverbial glass ceiling, which included serving as India’s first ever ambassador to the United Nations and India’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Check out our UN News multimedia story on her extraordinary career, here.
Ms. Pandit, who focused her energy on women’s health and access to education for women and girls was at one point so famous that people were clamouring for her autograph at a restaurant, while Hollywood actor James Cagney sat ignored next to her, said Manu Bhagavan, a professor at Hunter College and the City University of New York’s graduate centre.
In 1975, Ms. Pandit was put under house arrest for criticizing the decision by her cousin, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to declare a state of emergency and suspend constitutional rights.
Ms. Pandit “came roaring out” following her house arrest, “campaigned against Gandhi and stopping the tide of authoritism,” said Mr. Bhagavan. “A lesson of what is possible, what remains necessary and how to move forward.”
The discussion included Rebecca Adami, Associate Professor at Stockholm University, whose research on the founding mothers of the UDHR contributed to a recent exhibition at the UN.
Listen to her discussing the women trailblazers behind the UDHR in this audio interview from 2018:
