What does it look like when a government works to protect children, instead of taking their rights away?
The Cuban National Assembly passed a new Code of Childhood, Adolescence and Youth in July. The Code replaces the previous code from 1978 and protects the rights of young people ages 0-to-35 in education, progressive autonomy, sexual health, identity and against violence, neglect, exploitation and discrimination.
What is in the new Code?
There are 471 articles in the new Code of Childhood, Adolescence and Youth. Many of the articles address safety for children and young people in all areas of their life, from their schools and homes to the broader community and also safety and wellbeing on the internet.
The Code aims to prevent violence against children and young people, including domestic violence in the home, institutional violence in schools and online, and violence or discrimination suffered on the basis of one’s identity, including gender, race, disability, or economic status. It also outlines new protocols for reporting and addressing abandonment, abuse, trafficking, child labor and exploitation.
It guarantees the right to “technical and vocational training, access to decent employment, entrepreneurship, sexual and reproductive health, culture, and recreation” and “rights related to mobility, the use of free time, and participation in institutional and community decision-making spaces.” It also guarantees the right to free self-expression and the development of one’s identity.
It prohibits discrimination against children and adolescents on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics. It also prohibits surgeries on intersex youth without their informed consent, except in cases where the child’s health or life is at risk. Intersexuality refers to variations in sexual characteristics, where a person does not fit neatly into binary definitions of “male” or “female.” In many parts of the world, including the United States, intersex infants and children are given non-consensual genital operations to make their bodies conform to binary expectations about what a male or female body should look like. These surgeries often pose much higher risks than the variations themselves, which are typically harmless.
The Code includes the right for young people to make informed decisions about their bodies and their sexual and reproductive lives, and affirms the right to education, including comprehensive sex education, to enable young people to responsibly exercise those rights.
What was the process for creating the Code?
More than 825,000 people participated in the democratic process of creating the new Code, including children and adolescents themselves.
Since December 2024, the draft Code has been published online with the invitation to leave comments and revisions to be considered by the team drafting the Code. In April of this year, delegations from the state visited schools and other locations with children to teach them about the Code, and to interview them with questions such as, “What should a code that addresses the rights of children and adolescents include?” and “What would you recommend to the team drafting this legal document?”
As reported by UNICEF, the experience for the children was “a festive day, but also one of learning. They drew pictures about their rights and responsibilities, shared personal stories, and clarified doubts about how the new Code proposes to protect their rights.”
Sixth grader Luna H. Varona Labrador said to UNICEF that adults must “listen to children, because we say what we think, without sugar-coating things like adults often do.”
More than 124,000 pieces of feedback were collected, and the new legal Code went through 16 revisions after the first draft before becoming law on July 22 of this year.
How will the Code be enforced?
The Code details creating new ways for young people to report violations directly, as well as ensuring follow up from the state so that reported cases don’t disappear into an inaccessible legal void–the experience of many in the United States who report domestic or sexual abuse.
The many state institutions involved in drafting and voting on the Code understand that it won’t be enough to merely declare their intentions on paper. They place the responsibility of enforcing the code on not just the state but also on families, schools, and whole communities. Teachers who work with children as well as parents or guardians must guarantee access to accurate information on sexual and reproductive health, and are tasked with taking up the goals of the Code as their own.
The question of internet safety is especially challenging considering that many online platforms are run in other countries, including many in the United States, who do not respect Cuba’s way of life or the new Code.
The Cuban state and the Cuban people understand that enforcing this new Code will be an ongoing project that will require the dedication and cooperation of all of society, and acknowledge that the transition will not be without challenges. It will require educational campaigns about the new Code and why it’s important, addressing questions, training of teachers, dedication of sufficient resources in the face of the ongoing economic blockade, and creating new avenues of communication that children, their families and teachers can access.
Leidys María Labrador, representative of Puerto Padre, Las Tunas, acknowledges that legal prohibitions don’t automatically mean what is prohibited no longer exists. She described the new Code as a tool, saying,
Sometimes we limit ourselves to identifying the problem, describing it, and we don’t have the mechanisms to file a timely complaint so that it can be addressed. The new regulation gives us those mechanisms.
A Better World is Possible
In the United States and in nations under the boot of the U.S. military, the constant onslaught of attacks on our democratic rights and the rights of children seem inevitable. It is hard to imagine a future where the rights of children are fought for and protected when every day we wake up to the news of children being massacred in Gaza, or children being shot dead in U.S. schools, or a new law stripping away more rights for LGBTQ+ youth, while our politicians wring their hands and pretend that there is nothing they can do.
In Cuba, healthcare is already free and a human right, compared to the United States where the Trump administration is attacking children’s access to healthcare through cuts to medicaid, and the Supreme Court sides with state laws that ban access to life-saving medical care for transgender youth.
Cuba proves that it is actually possible for a state to stand for the rights of children and all its citizens.