The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a commission of the United Nations and is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. Its mandate includes implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and monitoring the implementation.
During the annual two-week session, representatives of UN member states and civil society organizations discuss progress and problems with implementing this key global legal document on gender equality, and plan actions to work toward rights for all women. WILPF (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) is one of the civil society organizations, and this author attended UN-CSW as a “local to global” participant for this year’s CSW-70.
This is the event that the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) comes to attend annually. Because Cuba is a global leader in women’s rights, their presence is important, and far from merely symbolic.
Cuba has maintained a commitment to the advancement of real, effective equality for women, beginning with the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, so that by the time the CEDAW (UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) was approved at the end of 1979, Cuba had 20 years of experience is attempting to end discrimination against women, including organization of the Federation of Cuban Women in 1960.
In 1965, Cuba legalized abortion, becoming the first country in the Western Hemisphere to allow women autonomy over their own bodies. This right has not been infringed upon or challenged since.
Women (and men) have the right to six weeks maternity/parental leave before giving birth and three months afterward at full salary, with another nine months available at 60% salary and with the right to return automatically to one’s job at the end of the year.
Equal pay for equal work is the law. And, coupled with the human right to healthcare, women and all genders in Cuba have comprehensive reproductive justice.
The comprehensive Families Code, passed in 2022 by popular referendum, redefines “family” as an association that could take different forms but is based on values of love, respect and solidarity, further ensuring the rights of women and promoting equality in sharing domestic rights and responsibilities between parents—regardless of sex or gender.
It confirms rights and protections for vulnerable populations, including orphaned children, people with disabilities and the elderly. It addresses issues of gender violence, adoption, common-law marriage, cohabitation, domestic partnerships, and the rights and responsibilities of individuals who are part of multi-parent and blended families.
Women currently represent more than 60% of those engaged in professional and technical work and more than 60% of government officials in Cuba. Currently, more than half of the delegates to the Cuban parliament, the Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular, are women.
In Cuba, Women’s Day, March 8, is a recognized holiday, as is May 17, the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia.
Cuba was the first country to sign and the second to ratify the CEDAW, in 1970. The United States still has not signed or ratified it.
This year, Cuban delegates Yamila Gonzalez Ferrer, vice-president of the Union of Cuban Attorneys and Judges and one of the main authors and implementers of the Families Code, and Osmayda Hernandez Beleño and Maybel Gonzalez from the Federation of Cuban Women were able to secure visas and attend.
They told of the impact of the current U.S. siege warfare with an intensification of the economic, commercial and financial blockade and a complete fuel blockade.
The previous survival rate for childhood cancers was around 80%. Due to shortages of medications and equipment, this survival rate has dropped, while the previous newborn death rate of 4.1% has more than doubled.
Dr. Gonzalez Ferrer spoke of deaf Cuban children who have had cochlear implants and who have been hearing normally for years. Now the batteries are dying and there are no replacements available, and the children are falling into an incomprehensible world of silence.
The Cuban delegates also pointed out that when there is no fuel, no transportation and limited communication, rights become theoretical rather than real.
Within Cuba’s free universally accessible health system, couples—both homosexual and heterosexual—who need assisted reproduction techniques to have children have a right to those services. But when hospitals scarcely have resources enough to perform the most critical life-saving surgeries, this right cannot be fulfilled.
And on the most basic level, how can a victim of domestic violence have access to justice or protection when transport and communication are cut off by the cruel U.S. actions?
Meanwhile, in the General Assembly of the UN-CSW, the U.S. delegate (Dan Negea) was attempting to block adoption of the consensus statement of this session. The U.S. government objected to “gender ideology,” “DEI” and abortion rights.
The delegate proposed eight separate amendments, defining gender as biological sex divided into men and women as determined at birth, condemning diversity and inclusion as an “immoral policy” and denying that previous structural barriers existed or that efforts toward parity in representation could be allowed.
He, on the behalf of the United States, proposed amendments that were against reparations, against abortion and would have legitimized U.S. unilateral sanctions, which have been shown by the Lancet study to have a lethal effect comparable to that of warfare.
And he demanded a separate vote on each amendment in an attempt to clog the process so that the original consensus statement never came to a vote. This unprecedented action came after weeks-long negotiations to achieve consensus on “Ensuring and Strengthening Access to Justice for All Women and Girls.”
It was the first time in the 70-year history of the yearly UN-CSW that its “agreed conclusions”—a member-state driven, negotiated text—were put to a vote by the 45 elected CSW members rather than adopted by consensus.
The U.S. effort was soundly defeated. First, the vote to consider the amendments as a package was passed, then the U.S. amendments were defeated by an overwhelming super-majority. Finally, the original consensus document came to a vote and was passed: 37 yes votes, six abstentions and a single no vote—the United States.
The United States under the current Trump regime continues to define itself as among the most hostile countries in the world to women’s rights.
