Yaniova Corrías Vega, secretary of the Federation of Cuban Women in Havana, stated this Monday on the program Revista Buenos Días from the state channel Caribe TV that Cuban women are part of "that creative resistance of the Cuban people," in an interview dedicated to the 96th anniversary of Vilma Espín's birth and the call "All Against the Blockade."
The leader portrayed Cuban women as the main figures in a resistance that she attributes solely to the U.S. embargo, without ever mentioning the regime's responsibility for the crisis facing the island.
"In the time we have to live, being accompanied by the thoughts and works of Vilma is both a lesson and a challenge for any woman who has the responsibility to lead a process at a certain moment due to the tasks that the revolution gives us," declared Corrías.
The secretary of the FMC praised the legacy of Vilma Espín —founder of the organization, chemical engineer, guerrilla fighter, and wife of Raúl Castro— as a relevant guide for all Cuban women: "Today, every Cuban woman, from the one piloting an airplane to the one tilling the land, the one producing food, the one in a hospital, and the homemaker responsible for her family and children, carries within her the legacy of Vilma."
Corrías called on women to gather this Tuesday at the Mariana Grajales Park in Havana starting at 7:30 AM, with the central event beginning at 9:30, as part of the "All Against the Blockade" campaign: "Being in the Mariana Grajales Park, we will gather starting at 7:30 in the morning to kick off our event at 9:30, where we are inviting all women who feel the impact of the blockade because they experience it in their families; it's a way to make tangible, to make visible the work of a woman who was always anti-imperialist."
The leader also emphasized that Cuba is "the second country in the world with the most women in a parliament", linking this fact to Espín's legacy and the "support for Fidel's work" in the year of his centenary, and mentioned a "youth anti-imperialist rally on the Havana waterfront" held the previous night as a prelude to the mobilization.
The speech by Corrías Vega contrasts with the documented reality: Cuba lost more than 1.4 million inhabitants between 2020 and 2024, and women make up 56-57% of emigrants, with 133 women for every 100 men leaving the island.
The only authorized women's organization in Cuba is classified by independent researchers as a transmission belt of the regime.
The researcher Hilda Landrove states that the organization "was created by the Cuban state and serves its interests; it is not a civil society organization, but rather a mechanism to influence social groups and prevent effective independent action."
While the leader celebrates "creative resistance," the Alas Tensas Gender Observatory has documented 31 confirmed feminicides in Cuba as of September 2025, amid the inaction of the FMC and the Cuban State.
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