Radio Cadena Agramonte emisiora de Camagüey
United Nations, September 24 – The hustle and bustle of the High-Level Segment during a UN session usually accompanies the meeting; the corridors witness the comings and goings of delegations, and covering everything is simply impossible.
Walking inside the agency's headquarters is a great exercise. One event can be scheduled at one end of another that would also be of interest, and both at almost similar times.
The Cuban delegation to this important week of the 80th session of the General Assembly has a busy schedule. Cuba's voice is multiplied in different forums. Dr. Tania Margarita Cruz, First Deputy Minister of Health, participated in one of them.
Her intervention took place at the high-level plenary meeting commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women.
“Thirty years after the Fourth World Conference on Women, the Beijing Declaration and Programme of Action continues to be the guiding principle for gender equality,” said Dr. Tania at the beginning of her speech.
She had three minutes to try to explain how Cuban women have been a revolution within the revolution itself. Progress is being made around the world, but much remains to be done on behalf of women and girls to achieve a world free of discrimination and violence, she stated.
As she stated, this is an issue that requires political will and a comprehensive approach to achieve concrete and sustainable results. However, it also requires development and resources that can be dedicated to promoting public policies and intersectoral strategies that allow progress in reducing the gender gaps that persist, she explained.
If we want to fulfill the commitments made in Beijing, Dr. Cruz emphasized, it is urgent to reform the current international economic order, which, instead of eradicating poverty and promoting development, generates exclusion and exacerbates inequalities within and between nations, and particularly affects efforts towards gender equality.
Cuba has made sustained progress in promoting women's rights, in line with the principles of social justice, equity, and human dignity of our social project, and in line with the commitments of the Fourth World Conference, she noted in her speech.
Cruz spoke about the adoption of the new Constitution of the Republic in 2019, the approval of the National Program for the Advancement of Women, the Comprehensive Strategy for the Prevention and Attention to Gender-Based Violence and Gender Violence in the Family Setting; the Family Code; and the Code for Children, Adolescences, and Youth.
“Women in Cuba make up 57.71 percent of the deputies in the National Assembly of People's Power, which places us as the second-largest country in the world and the first among unicameral parliaments,” argued Dr. Tania.
UNESCO places Cuba among the seven countries that have achieved gender parity in science, while the World Intellectual Property Organization has announced that Cuba ranks first with 53 percent of inventors being women, higher than the global average of 17 percent, she added.
And these are undeniable achievements. Dr. Tania was the voice of Cuban women at the event. And there are those who wonder how Cuba has come so far in matters that are still considered a utopia for many women around the world.
Cuba's First Deputy Minister of Health was precise: "These and other undeniable results have been possible despite the unprecedented intensification of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States, and Cuba's inclusion on the fraudulent list of state sponsors of terrorism."
But the blockade has not succeeded, nor will it succeed—warned Dr. Tania Margarita—in breaking the indomitable spirit of the Cuban people, nor our determination to build the better, more just, and inclusive country we dream of and to which we have a right, along the path that Cubans alike have freely chosen. (Text and photo: PL)
