Explained | Highlights of the 2022 Cuba Family Code

The new Family Code was accepted by a majority of two-thirds of voters.

The story so far: In a referendum held on Sunday, September 25, citizens of Cuba voted to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption in the country. The new legislation, called the Cuba Family Code, is a big step up from the 1960s and 1970s when members of the LGBTQ community were persecuted in the country and sent to militarised labour camps.

In a tweet, President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez congratulated the people of Cuba on the result of the historic referendum, calling it “justice”.

The Family Code was accepted by a majority of two-thirds of voters. However, the turnout, at 74%, was lower than the last referendum when the updated version of the Constitution was adopted in 2019 – around 90% of Cubans had come out to vote back then, news agency AFP reported. The percentage was also the lowest the Communist government received in a vote since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.

The provisions of the new Code were decided through scientific research, and proposals from the National Assembly’s Standing Committee for Children, Youth and Equal Rights for Women, and the Federation of Cuban Women, along with the National Union of Jurists of Cuba, as well as the Ministry of Justice, the People's Supreme Court, the Attorney General's Office, the National Organization of Collective Law Offices, the ministries of Education, Higher Education, Labour and Social Security, Public Health, Foreign Affairs, the National Centre for SexEducation, and others.

According to the new Family Code, while the Code of 1975 helped in developing public policies aimed at the “protection of children and adolescents, and the empowerment of women”, society has evolved and the characteristics that define a family have changed substantially since then.

One of the most important features of the new Family Code is equality between all citizens irrespective of any factor.

The Code provides for equality between men and women and equal distribution of time spent on domestic work among all family members – a role traditionally fulfilled by women rather than men.