Harris says ‘status of women is the status of democracy’
UNITED NATIONS >> U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris told the U.N.’s premier global body fighting for gender equality that “the status of women is the status of democracy” and the Biden administration will work to improve both.
America’s first female vice president quoted the late U.S. first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who chaired the drafting committee of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in December 1948, as saying: “Without equality, there can be no democracy.”
Harris said in a virtual speech to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women’s annual meeting that the exclusion of women in decision-making — its focus this year — is “a marker of a flawed democracy,” stress- ing that their participation “strengthens democracy.”
But she warned that democracy is “increasingly under great strain,” with “a troubling decline in freedom around the globe” over the past 15 years, and experts saying the past year “was the worst on record for the global deterioration of democracy and freedom.”
The Biden administration is committed to upholding “the democratic values” in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Harris said, “and we firmly believe that, when we work together globally, we can achieve the vision within it.”
The decision to have Harris deliver the U.S. address marked a step up from the Trump administration’s lower level representation at commission meetings, and reflected President Joe Biden’s commitment to expanding the number of women in top decision-making jobs and to multilateralism after his predecessor’s “America First” policy.
Harris said the U.S. is strengthening its engagement with the United Nations and the broader international system, pointing to its reengagement with the U.N. World Health organization, rejoining the U.N. Human Rights Council and revitalizing its partnership with U.N. Women “to help empower women worldwide.”
Harris pointed to a sign of progress: more women than men voting in every presidential election in the U.S. for the last 56 years.