Human Rights Day 2020: Human Rights Day is celebrated annually across the world on 10 December every year. The date was chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948. Two Indian women, Hansa Jeevraj Mehta and Lakshmi Menon, played a leading role in the creation of the Universal Human Rights Declaration (UDHR) in the mid-70s.
On Human Rights Day, we remember the both Indian women reformers who played an important role in making significant changes within the language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Hansa Jeevraj Mehta, the Indian representative for the UN Commission for Human Rights from 1947 to 1948, insisted on rethinking the road, from “all citizens are free and equal” to “all citizens are born free and equal” within Article 1. Declaration. Hansa Jeevaraj Mehta ensured a more gender sensitive language within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Human Rights Day: Lakshmi Menon who fought for “non-discrimination supported sex”. Hansa Jeevaraj Mehta, Lakshmi Menon was the opposite Indian woman who played a key role in drafting the Universal Human Rights Declaration. Champion for women’s rights, Lakshmi Menon was a lawyer.
She was the Indian representative to the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. Lakshmi Menon argued for the inclusion of “non-discrimination supported gender” in the entire manifesto. He argued strongly for the inclusion of the road “equal rights for men and women” within the preamble to the declaration.
Human Rights Day is observed on 10 December. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): and declared that everyone is entitled to the rights of an individual regardless of race, religion, color, Sex, social station or language. UDHR is in over 500 languages, and is the most translated document within the world.
With Roosevelt as Chairperson, the Drafting Committee for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), there were other famous women such as Evdokia Uralova of the then USSR, Minerva Bernardino of the Dominican Republic, Begum Shaista Ikramullah of Pakistan, Bodil Begtrup of Denmark. Marie Helen Lefuche of France.
Eleanor Roosevelt Chairperson wrote:
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”