Eastern Cuban women see their rights protected in new Family Code

The new Family Code covers all facets of today’s reality with a view to transforming society for the benefit of its members, including women's rights, one of the topics that hogged the limelight during the popular debates in the province of Artemisa.

Sc. M. Yuliesky Amador Echevarría, professor at the University of Artemisa (UA), told ACN that the text is a collective discourse that neither fabricates nor imposes foreign formulas to solve ordinary legal issues otherwise unprotected, as befits the country’s goals of social justice to give women their rightful place in society in accordance with related international treaties to which Cuba is party.

The bill, currently undergoing a nationwide popular consultation, seeks to ratify the achievements in this respect by advocating further changes, promoting full equality between women and men and the equitable distribution of domestic chores, and providing for a woman’s right to choice concerning, for instance, pregnancy.

Marialys Castro, municipal secretary of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) in the town of Güira de Melena, told ACN that women attending the meetings in the province have raised issues such as the way the proposed legislation promotes a family environment free of discrimination and recognizes all forms of gender violence, the status and remuneration granted to caregivers—a task often assigned to homemakers, as it is considered their particular obligation—and the surviving spouse’s pension.

The bill also provides for the protection of young girls by setting the minimum marriage age at 18, which does not prevent early sexual relations but helps reduce teenage pregnancy.

Many other examples highlight the way that the Code protects women and grants rights hitherto denied to some without detriment to others who already had them.