2025 UN NGO CSW69 Report

U.S. Women and Cuba Collaboration

Building a US Women’s Movement for Cuba

womenandcuba.org

womenandcuba@gmail.com

Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

wilpfus.org/our-work/cuba-and-bolivarian-alliance

2025 UN NGO CSW69 Report
30th Anniversary of the
Beijing Declaration and Platform
US Women and Cuba Collaboration
WILPF US: Cuba & Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee

Thirty years following the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, representatives from our two Cuba-allied organizations gathered in New York with women from around the world to celebrate and learn about Beijing Platform issues as they currently stand in our countries. We were there in person to further our work of educating others about the Cuban Revolution and the ways it has advanced the human rights of women in Cuba, to meet and share conversations and stories with Cuban and US colleagues and to learn from them, and to alert those present about the grievous ongoing, and now increased, injustices of the US blockade of Cuba. Because Cuba invests in global solidarity work with countries around the world, in particular through its medical outreach, peacemaking efforts, and exemplary models for women’s human rights, these annual CSW conferences bring us unique opportunities to interact with women from the Global South as well as the Global North who have deep respect for Cuba and a shared interest in feminist foreign policy.

This year we are reporting on three workshops we planned and sponsored as part of the NGO CSW69 Parallel Events, as well as what we learned from other events, our plans of action, and key resources.

Enjoy our report, check out resource attachments and video links at the end of the report, and please consider joining and supporting our work!

CSW HIGHLIGHTS:

An unfortunate lowlight: we saw how much had changed since the Beijing Conference in 1995, 30 years ago, when the US and many global North participants were not in an economic, constitutional, nor military crisis. There was a joyful hope of possibility so deeply felt in Beijing, where some members of our group were in attendance. This is in stark contrast to 2025 with the return of Trump, MAGA, and rise of fascism and authoritarianism here and abroad impacting women’s lives, safety, food, and shelter, as well as so much demolition of our human rights. Clearly, women from the Global South in 1995 were our canaries in the mine since too many lived with situations of unjust governance, economic scarcity and structural violence that put their lives and rights at severe risk.

Definitely a highlight: we noted resistance in many forms by the diversity of women, who were gender-expansive, BIPOC, activist, grassroots, and elected leaders; creative and powerful resistance was in the air, as always, confirmation of how much we need each other and need to find common ground. In most cases at this 2025 UN Conference, places and spaces of division in politics, foreign policy, strategy, and socio-economic status and identities were not only explored, but were carefully facilitated and valued.

We met with allied organizations such as our workshop co-sponsor, Women's Intercultural Network (WIN)/ National Cities for CEDAW, to strengthen relationships, share updates, and develop strategies. Inspired by the CEDAW National meetings, the City of Bozeman, MT, is moving forward to obtain an Ordinance as a City for CEDAW. Cuba was one of the first countries to ratify CEDAW! See CEDAW link at the end of this report.

Feminist Foreign Policy action is one of the Beijing+30 areas of action that was not named in the original Beijing Platform, but current increases in war, arms, militarism, sexual and gender-based violence, and genocides made it a significant issue. At this NGO CSW, FFP workshops and a mini-Conference of National States were gatherings where reports on FFP results drew large audiences, and resulted in movement-building resolutions. FFP Networks and global gatherings are a potentially fertile space to bring our organizing work and views on Cuba as a model of Beijing Platform actions, and to gather support from FFP. See a link to some of the latest FFP plans and outcomes at the end of this report.

Given the challenges of travel between the US and Cuba, CSW enabled meetings to see and reconnect in person with Cuban colleagues—leaders in the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and leaders in the National Union of Cuban Jurists (UNJC). In exchanges during our workshops and after CSW events and at the US-Cuba Normalization Conference, we set the stage for future US visits by Cubans for Collaboration and WILPF-sponsored events.

OUR WORKSHOPS:

#1: US Women and Cuba Collaboration Workshop, NGOCSW69 Parallel Event, March 13, 2025

CUBA: MODEL FOR IMPLEMENTING THE BEIJING PLATFORM OF ACTION

This workshop explored ways that Cuba, over the last 30 years, and through the leadership of the Federation of Cuban Women, has taken the Beijing Platform for Action and consistently organized to advance women’s and girls’ human rights. The guarantee of free education and free healthcare for all laid out by the Cuban Revolution is the basis for women in Cuba to make advancements in every field.

Today, the majority of Cuba’s university students and graduates are women; women are also the majority of medical doctors and other healthcare professionals, scientists, engineers, lawyers and members of Parliament. What are the conditions that made this breakthrough possible and what are the barriers that stand in the way for full implementation?

Film screening

Maestra /Teacher, by filmmaker and Collaboration Steering Committee member, Catherine Murphy

Speakers

Osmayda Hernandez, Director, International Relations, FMC Delegation to the UN
Natasha Lycia Ora-Bannon, Co-Chair, The Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect
Nataka Moore, PsyD, Professor and Psychologist, Adler University
Zenaida Mendez, President, National Dominican Women’s Caucus
Lianys Torres Rivera, Cuban Ambassador to the United States
Cindy Domingo, Chair, US Women and Cuba Collaboration and Co-Chair, WILPF US Cuba and Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee
Jan Strout, Moderator, Co-Founder US Women and Cuba Collaboration and Co-Leader Gallatin Valley Friends of Cuba, Montana

Co-Sponsors

WILPF US and WILPF US Cuba and Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee
National Dominican Women's Caucus
Women's Intercultural Network/Cities for CEDAW
CodePink: Women for Peace
Women of Vision
The Literacy Project

Link to workshop video at the end of this report.

#2: US and Cuba Normalization Conference, Malcolm X-Shabazz Center, NY, March 15, 2025

CUBA AND REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

Speakers representing Cuba who were in the US for the UN CSW69 Conference discussed how the Cuban women's movement has made advancements in the reproductive rights of women and girls that are a model for other countries. Osmayda Hernández, Director of International Relations for the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), noted that in Cuba public health, including reproductive and sexual health for both men and women, is a right. In response to a question on childcare, Yamila González Ferrer, vice president of the National Union of Cuban Jurists, explained that the number of working-age adults leaving the island due to the difficult conditions resulting from the U.S. economic war poses new challenges for both childcare and elder care. “Children are left in the care of grandparents, friends and neighbors. The immigrant adults send money back, but the emotional connections and support are missing,” she said. Cindy Domingo and Jan Strout from US Women and Cuba Collaboration and WILPF US Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee talked about the conditions and challenges we face in the US and our action plan for the upcoming year.

Speakers

Chair, Lucy Pagoada-Quesada, NYC Department of Education Teacher. Official Coordinator of the Libre Party, USA-Canada and Costa Rica. Producer of the program ‘Voices of Resistance’ at WBAI, 99.5 FM, NY
Yamila Gonzalez Ferrer, Vice President, National Union of Cuban Jurists (UNJC)
Osmayda Hernandez, Director, International Relations, FMC
Cindy Domingo, US Women and Cuba Collaboration, WILPF US Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee
Jan Strout, Co-Founder US Women and Cuba Collaboration, Co-Leader Gallatin Valley Friends of Cuba, Montana

Link to workshop video at the end of this report.

#3: US Women and Cuba Collaboration/Lesbians and Allies Project NGOCSW69 Parallel Event, March 19, 2025

CUBA’S FAMILIES CODE: REDEFINING THE GLOBAL FIGHT FOR LGBTQIA2S+ RIGHTS

The Lesbians and Allies Project of the US Women and Cuba Collaboration hosted an international queer women and gender expansive presentation with activists addressing threats, challenges and gains in their communities. We used Cuba’s liberatory national Families Code (2022) as an inspirational model for the international human rights of LGBTQI2S+ peoples everywhere. Cuba’s Family Code in effect makes love the law. It constitutionally legalizes same-sex marriages, guarantees same-sex adoptions, and recognizes solidarity gestation, prenuptial agreements, assisted reproduction and a partner’s hospital access for all couples.

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.” -Arundhati Roy

Speakers

Yamila Gonzalez Ferrer, Vice President, National Union of Cuban Jurists (UNJC)
Amy Bryant, MSW, United Nations Association (UNA-USA) Vice Chair and Pride Affinity Advisor, Gay Games Denver 2030 Cultural Director, United States (they/them)
Lía Sayonara Burbano Mosquera, Executive Director Mujer & Mujer Foundation, Ecuador
Leni Villagomez Reeves, Co-Chair WILPF US Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee, Steering Committee US Women and Cuba Collaboration (she/her)
Deb Goldman, RN, MPH, Women's Health Advocate, Lesbians and Allies Project, WILPF US Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee, United States (she/her)
Video Message: Norma Rita Guillard, social psychologist, Cuban leader in lesbian and Afrodescendent movements, Cuba (she/her)
Video Message: Afrodiverso, Cuba
Moon Luna Vázquez, Moderator, Chair Lesbians & Allies Project and Steering Committee US Women and Cuba Collaboration, United States (she/her)

Co-Sponsors

WILPF US Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee
Fundacion MUJER & MUJER
ILGA World
CHOICE for Youth & Sexuality

Links to workshop video, CSW report from Luna Moon Vazquez, and Families Code information at the end of this report.

CURRENT AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF US WOMEN AND CUBA COLLABORATION AND WILPF CUBA AND THE BOLIVARIAN ALLIANCE COMMITTEE

We are committed to renewed attention to the incomplete work of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform, and we invite you to work with us to build a strong US women’s movement dedicated to mutually beneficial US-Cuba relations, to ending the US government blockade against Cuba, and to defending our human rights here in the US. Our work advances the rights of all women in the context of universal human rights!

Calls to Action

1. Educate and advocate with your Congresspersons (Call 202/224-3121 for yours!) to remove Cuba from the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism. To download an Advocacy Kit and other Congressional actions around Cuba, please go to www.acere.org, ACERE (Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect).

2. Learn more and share news of Cuba’s women’s human rights agenda and Cuba’s new constitutional Families Code—passed by 2/3 popular vote across the Island in September 2022.

3. Write letters and editorials to editors and media outlets; post social media information available from our Facebook pages and E-newsletters about the reality of Cuba and the impact of the US blockade. www.facebook.com/womenandcuba

4. You can still travel to Cuba! There are many groups taking delegations to Cuba including Witness for Peace, CODEPink: Women for Peace, Center for Cuban Studies/Cuban Art Space, Venceremos Brigade, Road Scholar, and The Nation. Check our website for our next delegation.

CLOSING

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in his closing remarks for CSW69, proclaimed “Let us be clear: equal rights and opportunities are not partisan issues. They are global imperatives—and the foundation of peace, prosperity and progress.” (See link to his full statement at the end of report.) His words are a resounding reaffirmation of the Beijing Platform—and of our global interdependence. This is why we participate in CSW.

CSW69 gave us a wealth of inspiring in-person opportunities to meet extraordinary women from all parts of the globe, women from diverse organizations and lines of work, from across races and the rainbow of sex and gender diversity. We had opportunity to connect /update/ exchange with allied organizations and refresh solidarity with old friends. In our myriad face to face opportunities, we met new people, leaders and activists from whom to learn, exchange, network and gather information.

For a number of us in the US feminist peace, Cuba solidarity and global women’s human rights movements, including two authors of this report, being in New York City for the 2025 UN Conference on the Status of Women brought wonderful memories of 1995 and being at the Beijing Conference with over 40,000 women—most from the Global South--and 500+ US women, including then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. We came away motivated by new understandings of her powerful reminder that women’s rights are human rights, and we have continued in that work for the thirty years since, working with others as advocates, activists, grassroots organizers and leaders of NGO’s large and small, as individuals and as governmental representatives who will never give up efforts to realize all the tenets of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

In Solidarity,

Cindy, Leni, Jan, Moon, Cynthia, Deb, Kathryn, Catherine, Nataka, Ellen, Victoria

US Women & Cuba Collaboration Steering Committee, Cindy Domingo, Chair

US Women and Cuba Collaboration

US Women and Cuba Collaboration Facebook

WILPF US Cuba & Bolivarian Alliance Committee,

Cindy Domingo & Leni Villagomez Reeves, Co-Chairs

WILPF US Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Website