Cuban Women Moving Up

According to a 1953 Cuban census, women made up only 19.2% of the work force of the country. They carried out chores of minimal social status - unskilled work, as domestic workers or in small family businesses, secretaries or teachers at best and were also victims of the high rate of unemployment, prior to the Revolution in 1959.

Today, approximately half a million Cuban women are engaged in highly skilled technical and professional activities. While there is a great deal of talk about the feminisation of poverty, in Cuba there has been a feminisation of the technical and professional work force.

Women represent 45% of the scientific and technical sector. More than 70% of bank employees are women, while they represent 43.9% of the work force in joint ventures. More than 50% of the work force in the Ministry of Public Health is female and many women hold key posts, from primary care within the community to high-ranking positions in polyclinics and hospitals.

While thousands of women throughout the world are calling for a plot of land to farm, in Cuba more than 11,200 women are now using land in usufruct to grow tobacco, coffee, cacao and garden vegetables.

In terms of political power, three women head the important ministries of domestic trade, foreign investment, and technology, science and the environment. Within the Communist Party of Cuba, women are in the Central Committee and the Political Bureau and two women are first secretaries of this political organisation in two vital economic regions - Matanzas and Pinar del Rio, both in western Cuba. In the National Assembly, 27.6% of the deputies are women. Cuba is 12th in the list of women parliamentary representatives, surpassed only by those nations which have set minimum quotas for women representatives.

Despite the huge strides Cuban women have made over the years almost half the Cuban population and female electorale are still not fairly represented in the highest administrative, political and legislative spheres.