On Wednesday, Iran was ousted from the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a UN body tasked with empowering women. Twenty-nine members voted in favor of a resolution submitted by United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield who said, “The commission is the premier UN body for promoting gender equality and empowering women. It cannot do its important work if it’s being undermined from within. Iran’s membership at this moment is an ugly stain on the commission’s credibility.”

It is the first time a country has been removed from the CSW.

The campaign to oust Iran was waged by Vital Voices, a Washington group that promotes women’s leadership. "[Vital Voices'] petition urging global solidarity with Iranian women has garnered more than [114,000] signatures, including Michelle Obama, the former US first lady, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai," reports Pass Blue, a blog that covers UN news. 

As Vice President Harris tweeted, “The unmistakable message is this: the world is listening and taking action. The women and girls of Iran will be heard."

The move fittingly comes just days after International Human Rights Day, which is celebrated around the world every year on December 10 to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. 

As I listened to the reports of this historic action, it seemed like just the right timing for a tribute to the American woman who is responsible for the fact that a global declaration of support for human rights in every country exists. I’m referring to the great Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eleanor Roosevelt and the Women Who Shaped the Wording of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The United Nations was formed in 1945 with the purpose of ensuring that the world would never have to endure another world war. After the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Truman appointed his widow, Eleanor Roosevelt, to the US delegation. Before that, there were many calls for the former First Lady to run for the Senate or even for Vice President, but she wanted her husband's passing, as she told the press at the time, to be "the end of the story."

She had dedicated her life to serving the people of the United States however she could, and during the war made several trips abroad to battlefields as her wheelchair-bound husband's eyes and ears on the ground. But Truman's request was one that she felt she could not refuse, so she accepted, and traveled to the First General Assembly held in London in January of 1946. 

The rest of the US delegation, all men, didn't really know what to do with Roosevelt. So they assigned her to Committee 3, which was concerned with humanitarian and cultural concerns. Roosevelt believed they chose it for her because she wouldn't "do much harm" in it, compared with what they considered more important assignments in the political, budgetary or legal committees. 

But on the ship on the way over to that first meeting, she attended the State Department briefings for all the committees, as well as briefings held for journalists designed to help them understand the many issues at stake and, she writes in her autobiography, "I began to realize that Committee Three might be much more important than had been expected. And, in time, this proved to be true."

For the next three years, Roosevelt did what she had always done throughout her life, tried to make herself useful. She put in long hours on the committee and was also elected chair of the Human Rights Commission. Its first order of business was writing an international Bill of Rights, which became the UDHR. Through her dedication and diplomacy, she shepherded the Declaration through to its eventual 48-0 passage in the UN General Assembly.

Over time, she wrote in her autobiography, there were more and more women in various delegations. She worked with many of them on the wording of the Declaration. "Hansa Mehta of India succeeded in changing the text at the beginning from 'All men…' to 'All human beings are born free and equal…'  Minerva Bernardino, a diplomat from the Dominican Republic, was instrumental in including 'the equality of all men and women' in the preamble." And there were more women from France, India and other delegations who made important contributions to ensure the document was inclusive of all people.

Many of these women's names have been lost to history, but their work lives on. They made their mark on this incredible document that is still so valuable today, inspiring and challenging leaders to do better for their people. Their work shows how important it is for women, especially indigenous women and women of color to be at the tables where our future is decided. Their words call out to us as we still strive, even in this country, to uphold the values laid out in the Declaration.

As Volker Türk, the current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted recently, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a miraculous text. At a time when the world emerged from cataclysmic events, the Declaration set out universal rights and recognized the equal worth of every person.”

I believe that the story behind the Declaration is one that is instructive to us today. At a time when we are struggling with so much suffering and so many human rights violations around the world, due to climate change, sexual violence, a lack of opportunity to education and work for women, aggression in the Ukraine, and oppressive governments, the UDHR is an example of world leaders coming together and proclaiming the world they wanted to see. The world they wanted to live in.

This week's expulsion of Iran continues that mission. As US Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said before today's vote: "I urge you to keep this simple. Let's vote to remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women. Let's do this for women. For life. And for freedom." 

Onward!

- Pat