Dalia Leinarte

Dalia Leinarte is a Lithuanian history professor at Vilnius University. She is a member and former chair of the UN CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Academic background and positions

Dalia Leinarte was born on the 25th of October 1985 in Trakai, in Lithuania. She graduated from Vilnius University in 1981 and earned her PhD in History from Vytautas Magnus University in 1996. From 2000 to 2017, she chaired the Gender Studies Centre at Vilnius University. She held positions as a Fullbright Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the State University of New York (2002-2003), a Research Fellow at the American Association of University Women (2005-2006) and a Visiting Professor in the Gender Studies Programme (2005-2008) at the Idaho State University. She passed her Habilitation in History at Vilnius University in 2009. In 2014, she became a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College, at the University of Cambridge. Dalia Leinarte’s academic interests cover family history and gender and women’s history, with a focus on Russia and the USSR. She has published several academic works on the discrimination of women and women’s rights.

Commitment to the women’s cause

Dalia Leinarte has worked toward the amelioration of the women’s cause for more than twenty years. She has been a consultant of the Lithuanian Inter-Ministerial Commission on Equal Opportunities of Women and Men since 2000 and has contributed to the writing of the 3rd and 4th Lithuanian CEDAW Periodic Reports. She participated and contributed to campaigns, training courses and projects related with the rights of women, such as the “Preventive – Informative Campaign against Trafficking in Girls and Women in the Baltic States” and the “European Social Fund project Gender Stereotypes in the Labour Market”. She also participated to varied conferences organised by the European Union and other international organisations, such as the “Employablity and Entrepreneurshipp – Gender Stereotypes” EU conference in 2007, the “Businesswomen and experts discuss women’s entrepreneurship in the OSCE region” international conference and the “Good Practices on Gender Equality. Implementation of Gender Mainstreaming” EU seminar.

Membership of the CEDAW

In 2013, Dalia Leinarte became a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. She is currently on her third term.

The Committee was created by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted in 1979 and enforced in 1981. It is composed of 23 independent experts on women’s rights, which are elected by State parties’ representatives. These experts are not elected as representatives of their country but “in their personal capacity” (Art. 17.1 of the Convention). However, “geographical distribution”, as well as “relevant legal experience and gender representation of the candidates” are still taken into account during the election. The Committees’ members are elected by half every two years. The Committee meets twice a year to evaluate the measures of State parties with regards to the rights of women and ensures that the Convention is respected. With each new CEDAW session, around eight State parties are examined. The representatives of the countries concerned write a report on the current situation of Women’s rights in the country, which are then examined by the Committee. Other roles of CEDAW experts include the participation to working groups on matter relating to women’s rights.

Vice-chair and chair of the CEDAW

Dalia Leinarte was elected as vice-chair of the CEDAW on the 16th of February 2015, for a two-year term. Two years later, on the 13th of February 2017, she was elected as chair. Her roles included, among others, to represent the Committee at UN meetings, lead the discussion during the Committee’s sessions, and prepare agendas. During her membership, Dalia Leinarte was a member of many different working groups, such as the joint working group of the CEDAW and the Committee on the Rights of the Child on harmful practices, the working group on women in conflict prevention and the CEDAW/UN Women working group. She also chaired a working group on trafficking in women and girls in the context of global migration, which resulted in the adoption of general recommendation No.38 on the 20th of November 2020.

As Dalia Leinarte did not submit a candidature to renew her term, her membership to the CEDAW will end at the end of 2024.