885. Cuba: Number of Women in Government Posts Increasing

Three leaders of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC)

By EFE, Fox News Latino, August 23, 2012 

The number of women serving in government posts increased in the past two years in Cuba, where females now hold around 45 percent of the seats in parliament, Communist Party daily Granma said Thursday.

"As a result of the government strategies for promoting women" seven government bodies, including the supreme court and the central bank, have filled between 50 percent and 70 percent of their top and essential positions with women.

The ministers of Food Industry, Finances and Prices, Internal Commerce, Education, Labor, Science, Justice and Light Industry are all women, as are the heads of the Water Resources Institute and the Controller-General's Office.

Granma emphasizes that the Cuban Parliament is the national legislative body with the third highest percentage of women in the world with 45.2 percent females among its members, according to figures from last December.

The paper says that between 2010 and 2011 the number of women heading the Provincial Administration Councils increased from 21.4 percent to 53 percent, and there was also a 1 percent increase in the number of women on municipal councils.

"In Cuba, women objectively have the same chances to get into political posts as men, as long as they have ... the aptitudes and talents," the paper said.

Granma added, however, that experience suggests that to achieve this "a push is necessary, ... an explicit intention to overcome the sexist patterns that govern our reasoning and make a commitment to them."

Last year, President Raul Castro publicly criticized the "inadequate systematization and political will to ensure the promotion of women, blacks or people of mixed race and young people to decision-making posts" on the island.