Prospects for a National Women’s Legislative Agenda These insights are not new, rather they are (re)presented here as anchors for critical discussions of women’s human rights organizations on the role of legislative lobbying and advocacy in women’s empowerment, specifically women’s right to political participation. Women’s political participation is a right, thus, universal, inherent and indivisible from other human rights such as the right to life, education employment and health; it is a requirement for women’s full realization of their capabilities to shape their choices and environment. Women’s political participation is ultimately about women’s selfdetermination, not just having more women-specific laws or increasing women in electoral positions. Thus, legislative agenda setting, engaging the legislative branch of the government, asserting gender quotas and developing gender champions among key policy makers, is only one subset of the bigger work of the women’s movement as regards women’s right to political participation; the greater portion of the work lies in ensuring that legislative victories actually translate into wider spaces for all women to participate in local and national development agenda setting. Another way of putting this is asking to what extent do these laws move women away from society’s label of “victim” – which connotes weakness and requiring protection from the patriarchal State – to women whose agency should affirmed. This is particularly true in assessing laws addressing gender-based violence. In the present environment, where there are already good laws in place, and what seems to be the gap is in their operationalization and implementation, how much of women’s resources should be directed to legislative lobbying? In the space provided by the SARILAYA caucus and UN Women conversation, women’s groups highlighted the crucial role of education (reflection, back-to-basics) and feminist organizing to “re-imagine” a women’s movement solidly grounded on the goal of women’s empowerment, gender equality and gender justice, regardless of the identities, sector or issues they highlight in their work, and the strategies they choose to employ. In place of a women’s legislative agenda, the discussion surfaced themes that cut across each organization’s advocacies, and perhaps can be initial handles in examining proposed laws in Congress i.e., how are these themes integrated, defined and addressed in the bill? if not explicitly in the bill, what are the implications of the bill’s possible enactment to women situations as defined under these themes? Overarching here is the earlier question of how do these bills contribute to expanding women’s capacities and spaces for political participation, leading to their self determination. Gender-based violence against women  Divorce as a option for women to take back control of their lives  Removing barriers against women’s reproductive and sexual health and rights, including that of girl children and adolescents: access to reproductive health information, products and services; non-discrimination on the basis of SOGIE; decriminalization of abortion