A San Mateo County city could be on the forefront for adopting an international bill of rights for women.

Daly City is now joining the list of four other cities (Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as Portland, Oregon) that are adopting an international bill of rights for women. The bill is intended to promote equal access to wages, healthcare and employment.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama have all attempted to get the U.S. Senate to ratify and adopt it, but without success. The United States remains the only industrialized nation to fail to adopt this measure.

The other U.S. cities who have adopted their own version have reported that the measure has helped improve equal pay and domestic violence incidents.

City governments, knowing that the U.S. Congress is not always able to pay close attention to every issue, are taking the initiative to get their own versions passed at the local level, hoping to increase the chances of the measure finally being approved at the national level. Daly City is the latest city that is attempting to pass their own version of the CEDAW.

David Canepa, city council member of Daly City, is leading the effort for his city. Canepa had been at a board meeting talking about a wide range of issues effecting women when someone mentioned that the city of San Francisco had passed their own measure. He looked further into the details and then attended a workshop in San Francisco that dealt with the ins and outs of the measure. His interest in the issue continued and it became one that he wanted his own city to get on board with.

“This is not just a women’s issue,” Canepa said. “It’s a basic human rights issue.”

Canepa brought the issue forward at the Daly City board meetings and hopes to have his city be the next to adopt this measure. He feels that if it can succeed at the local levels, it may spread across the nation, and as he puts it, “start the conversation on a very important topic.”

Although more and more women are entering leadership roles, issues like equal pay and discrimination have yet to be fully eliminated. According to the White House, women who work full-time still make approximately 77 percent of what their male colleagues do.

For instance, according to a study conducted by Women’s Institute of Research, women in construction are paid 17 percent less than their male co-workers. Despite the wage gap, women make up nearly half the workforce. However, gender inequality has been a hot topic recently.

“Once something is brought to the awareness of people, they can start to question if it is something appropriate to their value systems,” Skyline Career Counselor Lavinia Zanassi said. ”So even if people disagree, it can become an issue that is debatable. If it is on the table, like it is being put forward now in Daly City, it can grow from there.”

Zanassi added that Daly City’s progressive city council and its central location in the Bay Area could make it an example for the rest of the area.

“Maybe bringing it to one of our local communities will trigger a demand for equality within San Mateo County itself,” Zanassi said.