Minerva Bernardino was a Dominican diplomat. She was one of only four women to sign the United Nations Charter in 1945, and most of her life's work took place within that body. In 1948 she was also one of the signers of the United Nations's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the most influential and impressive documents of our times.
Background
Minerva Bernardino was born on May 7, 1907, in the town of El Seibo in the Dominican Republic, Bernardino was one of seven children. She grew up in a home that believed strongly in women's rights, and her parents encouraged her to be independent: "My mother was very progressive and I was reared in an atmosphere that was most unusual in my country".
Education
Her parent's liberal views on women's self-sufficiency were well engrained when she was orphaned at the age of 15. By then she was studying for a bachelor's degree in science and had decided to seek a career in government.
Career
By 1929 she was a leader of Acción Feminista Dominicana (Dominican Feminist League), whose efforts led to the broadening of rights and a more inclusive 1942 Dominican constitution. On June 26,1945, at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, the delegates of 50 governments adopted and signed the United Nations Charter, a document that established and set forth the aims of the United Nations.
By then Bernardino worked for the Dominican government, and as its representative in San Francisco, was one of four women to sign the United Nations Charter. At the time, she was vice chairman (and later chairman) of the Inter-American Com-mission on Women, the first regional body set up to advance the rights of women. In 1946, Bernardino joined Eleanor Roosevelt and the two other women delegates to the first United Nations Assembly, and together they wrote an "Open Letter to the Women of the World," urging women to become active participants in politics and government.
At the end of World War II, as a result of the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the extensive number of political prisoners and exiles worldwide, the issue of human rights was a major international issue. Bernardino was unswerving in her vision for human rights, and due to this dedication the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights included the phrase "to ensure the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms without discrimination against race, sex, condition or creed." Throughout her life she shared with other women the account of the three-month struggle it took for her and the only other three women to convince the mostly male delegation to include the term "sex" in the document.
In 1950 Bernardino became the United Nations representative from the Dominican Republic. She fought for the formation of the Commission on the Status of Women and was elected its chairperson from 1953 to 1955. Under her leadership, one of the commission's first accomplishments was to formalize women's political rights. The outcome of this would pay off 20 years later, under the United Nations's Decade for Women (1975-1985). Bernardino also played an active role in the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and was the first woman vice president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Politics
Bernardino worked mainly to advance political rights, and especially to improve women's suffrage in Latin American states. Her achievements include the 1954 Convention on the Political Rights of Women, which asserted women's rights to vote, run for office and hold office. Bernardino also supported international law that would ensure the equality of women in marriage and divorce, such as the Montevideo Convention on the Nationality of Married Women of 1933.
Of all her contributions, Bernardino is best known for arguing in favor of gender-inclusive language in the early stages of the UN's development. At the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization, although she was technically a delegate of the Dominican Republic sent by dictator Rafael Trujillo as a “low-risk opportunity to appear progressive” Bernardino entered the conference with her own agenda, representing the interests of the Inter-American Commission of Women (IACW). Bernardino and her colleague Berta Lutz were acknowledged as “instrumental” in the inclusion of the phrases “equal rights of men and women,” “faith in fundamental human rights” and “the dignity and worth of the human person” in the preamble to the UN's charter. She is also credited with the wording “equal rights of men and women” in the preamble for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—she believed that omitting “and women” would have seemed intentional and invited discrimination.
Bernardino was also involved in creating and later chairing the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which was established in 1946. Although subordinate to the Commission on Human Rights, the CSW was known for exercising independence and initiative. This commission's accomplishments include the gender-inclusive language in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the creation of the 1967 Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. The Commission also promoted women's rights through studies of the treatment of women, and used their findings to call for more change.