Digitized Commission on the Status of Women Meeting Record

On the occasion of the 62^nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the Dag Hammarskjöld Library is pleased to announce summary records from the first ten sessions of the Commission (1947-1956) are now available in the UN Digital Library.  The Commission on the Status of Women is currently meeting at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Starting with the summary record of the first meeting held at Lake Success, New York on 10 February 1947, 230 historical summary records have been digitized documenting the proceedings of the Commission throughout the first ten years. These meeting records provide a glimpse into the multi-faceted work of the Commission during the early years. They offer insight into the status of women in different Member States, as well as challenges and progress made by the Commission in advancing the rights of women. 

The team digitizing the sometimes fragile documents noted some of the topics on the agenda during the early years of the UN are still relevant today. For example, E/CN.6/SR.222 includes the agenda point ”Equal pay for equal work [..]” and E/CN.6/SR.223  “Working women, including working mothers, [..] and means for the improvement of their position”.

Due to the significance of this collection of documents, the Library hopes to eventually preserve the entire historic collection of meetings in digital format to make them accessible to a global audience from within the UN Digital Library. At present we can offer a historical perspective to gender equality and the earliest work of the Commission in the advancement of women’s rights.

Other recently digitized series include:

• UN Statistical Yearbook (1948-2017)
• General Assembly Official Records, General Committee meeting records (1947-1976)
• Checklist of United Nations Documents (1946-1949)
• ECOSOC Official Records Annexes (1946-1973)
• Report of the Committee for Industrial Development (1961-1966)
• Report of the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme (1966-1993)
• Report of the Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters (1968-1997)