A/HRC/38/37 full realization of the right to health. 32 Interventions towards these objectives include a comprehensive assessment of the extent to which existing legal and policy frameworks comply with the human rights norms applicable to health and well-being, through a participatory, inclusive and transparent process, with stakeholder consultation throughout. Such an assessment could be followed by measures to: (a) repeal, rescind or amend laws and policies to align them with human rights norms; (b) enact laws and implement policies promoting positive measures to ensure that essential health services, including primary health-care, sexual and reproductive health services, maternal health services, and neonatal, child and adolescent health services, are available, accessible, acceptable and of good quality;33 and (c) ensure accountability, as more fully set out below. 3. Operationalizing the pledge to leave no one behind 26. The central promise of the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind and to reach the furthest behind first effectively mirrors the human rights principle of equality and nondiscrimination. In the section below, the High Commissioner explores the challenges in operationalizing this commitment, viewed from the perspective of women’s rights, as well as in the two specific areas of neglected health concerns and universal health coverage. The pledge to leave no one behind should be reflected in all policy areas, including accountability and participation. (a) Women and girls 27. The 2030 Agenda aspires to a world in which every woman and girl enjoys full gender equality and all legal, social and economic barriers to their empowerment have been removed. Achieving gender equality will contribute significantly to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals as a whole. Goal 5 explicitly calls on all States to empower all women and girls and achieve gender equality by 2030. Equality between men and women is protected by several human rights instruments and is a cornerstone of human rights law.34 Nevertheless, the denial of the health and health-related rights of women and girls remains widespread, as a result of discrimination, exclusion and traditional, cultural, social and other norms and practices that place women and girls in positions of inferiority or subordination in the home, the community, the workplace and broader society. Cumulative and intergenerational impacts of gender-based discrimination and inequality have grave consequences for the health outcomes of half of the world’s population.35 28. Other obstacles to the realization of the right to health of women and girls include legal, procedural, practical and social barriers to access to the full range of sexual and reproductive health facilities, services, goods and information. 36 Harmful gender stereotypes and practices, such as child and forced marriage, female genital mutilation, the preferential care of boys and violence against women also contribute to poor health outcomes.37 Unequal access to quality education and employment limits the opportunities available to girls and women to ensure their agency. The lack of financial independence and, in particular, of agency, frequently means that women and girls are unable to access good quality health services that also meet the criteria regarding acceptability, especially gender sensitivity: a vital element concerning their ability to exercise their sexual, reproductive and other health rights. 32 33 34 35 36 37 See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 14, paras. 33 and 36. Jyoti Sanghera and others, “Human rights in the new Global Strategy”, British Medical Journal, vol. 351, supplement 1 (September 2015), pp. 42–43. See International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 3; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, art. 3; and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, arts. 1–2. In its report entitled Leading the Realization of Human Rights to Health and through Health, the High-Level Working Group on the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents notes that “preventable death, ill-health and impairment are firmly rooted in the failure to protect human rights” (p. 7). See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 22, para. 2. See www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet23en.pdf. 9