Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 37

Afro-Cuban Women,
Justice and Equality
Eroisis González Suares
Coordinator, Nuevo País Women’s Platform (PFNP)
Havana, Cuba

C

uban civil society has been raising its
voice to demand rights denied for more
than fifty years. Many are the organizations that have done their part in the struggle so
that citizen’s rights - and women’s rights in particular - are respected. La Plataforma Femenina
Nuevo País [Nuevo País Women’s Platform]
(PFNP) has been created as a modern, progressive
organization with a contemporary feminist
agenda meant to respond both to the non-existent
debate about gender and the growing demand on
the part of many women for the creation of an organization whose origin, format, and operations
differ completely from the ‘official’ Federación
de Mujeres Cubanas [Federation of Cuban
Women] (FMC).
The PFNP has been created in order to develop a
solid structure by and for women, one that defines
and defends the rights and interests of women particularly those of African descent. No one better than Cuban women themselves can assert their
values, codes, objectives, and interests -- representing their concerns, weaknesses, and possibilities for social, economic and political
participation -- and propose courses of action.
One of their greatest concerns is the increasing
level of violence against women. It is visible in
various ways: domestic violence, forced prostitution, police repression, and others. The PFNP has
increased its community work in an attempt to
eradicate or at least attenuate this evil in Cuban
society.

All these forms of violence against women are
twice as bad for Afro-Cuban women: they suffer
as women and Afro-descendants.
In 1993, the United Nations General Assembly
approved the Declaration on the Elimination of
Violence against Women.

PFNP in the internacional arena

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