Cubans question deputies about family code, gender violence and animal protection law

Cuban Internet users questioned the country's deputies on Monday about updating the Family Code, a decree law on Animal Protection and gender violence, pending issues in the Constitution approved just a year ago.

In a forum regarding the anniversary of the constitutional referendum in Cuba, members of Parliament addressed compliance with the 2019 legislative schedule, reported the official portalCubadebate.

But the occasion was taken advantage of by several participants through emails and social networks (24% of opinions) to ask about the update of theFamily Code, one of the transitional provisions established by the new Constitution and that, if approved, could allow equal marriage on the Island.

Las Tunas deputy Yumil Rodríguez Fernández said in this regard that said code “will go to the assembly three times and will regulate the types of family, marriage, the relationships of parents with their children, the role of grandparents…” , detailed the source.

The first reading of the proposal will be done in April 2021 and then the first popular consultation will be established, he explained.

Another question revolved around the issue ofgender violence, since the National Assembly postponed in January any debate on a law in this regard until 2028. The constitutional schedule of the Cuban government provides for the approval of 107 legal norms, but none will address this issue.

However, Rodríguez Fernández stated that "in the legislative program there is no legal norm. But the Constitution itself establishes guidelines that regulate and protect women."

"It establishes issues that in some way regulate acts that fall within gender violence," commented the deputy, which does not respond to the social demand for regulations that typify, for example, feminicide, whose numbers have skyrocketed in Cuba.

Internet users also asked about a Decree Law on animal welfare in the country, where the rates of violence against animals have mobilized part of the population to demand a legal norm that protects them.

Deputy Raúl Palmero indicated that the proposal will be ready in November. Against the grain, the protective organizations that emerged in the heat of the increase in animal abuse in the Caribbean nation are urging some sanction for those who abandon or exercise any type of violence against animals.

The new Magna Carta was submitted to a Constitutional Referendum on February 24, 2019, which was plagued with controversies. On Facebook and Twitter some citizens denounced that the vote was done with a pencil and not a pen.

One of the most notorious frauds was that of a man who filled out about 30 ballots with the "Yes" and placed them in one of the ballot boxes.