A/HRC/27/73 III. Panel II — Women’s human rights and the sustainable development agenda 17. The panel was composed of Saraswathi Menon, Director, Policy Division at UN Women; Frances Raday, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice; Gita Sen, Professor of Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Adjunct Professor of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health; Luisa Cabal, VicePresident of Programs, Center for Reproductive Rights, New York; and Kingsley Kariuki, Kenya Federation of Slum Dwellers. The panel was moderated by Sarah Cook, Director, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development . A. Panel summary 18. In her opening statement, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights recalled that although the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had made progress in sectors such as education and poverty reduction, the hidden reality of growing inequality, particularly for women, had not been adequately addressed. The new framework was an opportunity to embrace a more human rights -based agenda. The Deputy High Commissioner highlighted the need to ensure women’s economic, social and cultural rights, citing examples of land and sexual and reproductive health rights. Furthermore, she noted that one of the most glaring omissions of the MDGs was the failure to address violence against women and girls, despite the fact that that was a reality for many women and girls, and not only in conflict situations. She emphasized that the post-2015 agenda must establish a strong accountability mechanism to hold governments accountable for reaching the goals, identifying clear responsibilities to ensure that all actors, including private actors, were held to account, that institutions were answerable and that commitments were enforceable. 19. Ms. Menon focused her remarks on efforts made by UN Women in the discussions relating to the post-2015 development agenda. She reported that UN Women was advocating sustainable development goals that were based on human rights, gender equality and sustainability and which recognized multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination. She called for a stand-alone goal on gender equality, which included explicit attention to women’s human rights. She also outlined the targets which UN Women was advocating, namely on discrimination against women, violence against women, sexual and reproductive health and rights, unpaid care and domestic work, property and land rights, and participation. She further emphasized the need to mainstream gender concerns across the entire framework. She expressed concern about the fact that unpaid care wo rk and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) continued to be contested. She emphasized with regard to unpaid care work that it was the fundamental basis for sustaining societies, communities and households. With regard to SRHR, she said that population planning and interventions must not undermine women’s rights or bodily integrity. 20. Ms. Raday referred to the recent report of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice which focused on discrimination against women in economic and social life. She reaffirmed the importance of a post-2015 framework that recognized women’s unpaid care work and that structural barriers to women’s economic opportunities, which exist ed as a result of women’s reproductive function and caring roles, should be dismantled. She called for unpaid care work to be integrated into macroeconomic policies, such as 6

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