Helvi Sipila & Lucille Mair

I join my friend Rachel Mayanja, Assistant UN Secretary-General, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women in celebrating the lives of Helvi Sipila of Finland and Lucille Mair of Jamaica. The two women who worked at the United Nations Headquarters in the seventies provided leadership in organizing the first and second world conferences on Women: The World Conference of the International Women’s Year held in Mexico City in 1975, and the World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievement of the United Nations Decade for Women in Copenhagen in 1980. To this day, their valuable contributions have made a lot of difference in the improvement of women’s lives no matter where they live in the world. At the United Nations Headquarters on 9 March 2010, the Permanent Mission to the United Nations of Finland and Jamaica organized a special event in connection to the 54th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women “The Road to Beijing: Critical Building Blocks. In memoriam to Helvi Sipila and Lucille Mair.” Rachel and I are fortunate to have had an opportunity to work under their leadership in the preparations of the world conferences. Both women came from a very different background from a different parts of the world, but they shared the same dedication to the cause of women’s right and their full participation in World’s Affairs. Their tireless energy and dedication contributed greatly to the success in drafting the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 1979. But they believed that enacting law against discrimination on the ground of sex is not enough. We should look at the role of women in development. Development must included women as full participant and beneficiaries. And that the basic factors causing the unequal share of women in development relate to the division of labour between the sexes. Both Helvi Sipila and Lucille Mair made sure that the World plans and programmes of action clearly stated that discrimination against women arises because of women’s reproductive role. Historically, the division of labour has been justified on the basis of the childbearing function of women.