Rebbeca Adami. Photo: UN

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"Women Who Shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" - side event of the 69th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

A CSW69 event 20 March 2025 reflected on the significant contributions of women in the drafting and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The discussion also explored the historical context, challenges these pioneering women faced, and the profound impact and legacies of their work on contemporary movements for gender equality and the work of the United Nations, as well as addressing current advocacy efforts for gender equality and human rights globally."

At the end of the event, the audience shared a critical reflection: 
“The women who shaped the universal declaration of human rights fought to embed equity, dignity and justice into global frameworks, however, marginalized communities, particularly women of color and those in post-conflict regions still face systemic barriers in accessing fundamental rights like healthcare, education and bodily autonomy.
- In what ways can we build upon their legacies to ensure that human rights frameworks not only acknowledges these disparities but actively dismantle the structural inequalities that sustain them? - How do we hold institutions accountable for truly making human rights universal?”
 
Prof. Manu Bhagavan, Professor in the Department of History, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York was first to respond: “All of us, there is no other way, we are the United Nations. United Nations is an institution its true but it is representative of, and involves all people, and so ultimately the only way forward while charters and language and legalisms are critically important it is ultimately up to each individual to stand up in individual settings and say that these things are necessary, that we must stand for these values and these principles and to fight for the ideals which we believe are not just important but indeed critical to a future world of justice and peace.”
 
Ass. Prof. Rebecca Adami, Department of Education, Stockholm University seconded by responding: “I would say that intersectional solidarity is also a way forward because it’s a way to show that minorities are actually not in minority, they are in majority, and the privileged few who usually talk about themselves as the majority groups are actually in minority. So, if we would have more intersectional solidarity all over the world, I think we could create more democratic and human rights respecting governments and institutions to uphold both political, civil and economic rights. But then we need to question the minorities that are now profiting from peoples’ despair.”

Text by Rebecca Adami

Article by Rebecca Adami in UN Chronicle

Intersectional Solidarity: We Are All the United Nations -

This piece in the UN Chronicle expands the idea of intersectional solidarity, both in the history of the United Nations, and as a way forward in a world of injustice.

Rebecca Adami