Almost 30% of Cuban girls aged 15 to 19 are married or in unions with men aged 20 or older, according to data presented in April 2026 during the launch of the Joint Program for the Prevention of Teenage Pregnancy in Cuba.
A report from the official Prensa Latina reveals that these relationships persist despite the fact that the Family Code of 2022 prohibits marriage before the age of 18.
The 2022 National Fertility Survey from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) specifies that 14.6% of adolescents aged 15 to 19 who are married or in a union have a partner who is at least a decade older, a percentage that increases to 19% among women aged 20 to 24.
An analysis by the magazine Alas Tensas, based on information from the Women's Studies Center, reveals that in rural areas the gap widens: approximately one in four women in those age groups lives with a partner who is at least ten years older.
The same research revealed that 21.3% of Cuban women aged 20 to 24 had married or partnered before turning 18, and 3.3% did so before the age of 15.
The jurist Yamila González Ferrer, a member of the drafting commission for the Family Code, has warned that "the relationship between early marriages and adolescent motherhood is very close... often the former acts as a driving force for the latter, leading to more frequent sexual relations and greater vulnerability."
This reality is reflected in the figures for teen pregnancy in Cuba: although the rate decreased from 48.5 births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19 in 2021 to 43.2 in 2025, the eastern provinces show the most alarming figures.
Granma registers 56.5 births for every 1,000 adolescents in that group, followed by Holguín with 53.3 and Guantánamo with 50.9.
In the group of girls aged 10 to 14 years, the fertility rate has remained virtually unchanged, staying between 1.3 and 1.4 per 1,000 girls.
In 2024, 327 girls under the age of 15 gave birth in Cuba, out of a total of 11,962 births from mothers under 20 years old.
The psychologist and demographer Matilde de la Caridad Molina Cintra, deputy director of the Center for Demographic Studies at the University of Havana, described the phenomenon as "the largest disarticulation of Cuban fertility" and emphasized that "that teenager still does not have a real awareness of the roles she must assume as a mother. We must understand that they are still girls."
The research also points to a pattern that is repeated across generations.
Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, deputy chief of the ONEI, acknowledged that "all surveys agree that there is an intergenerational echo of teenage fertility: from grandmothers to mothers and then to daughters who also become mothers at a very young age. Sexual education or general education is not breaking that cycle."
The 2026 Semiannual Report from the Observatory of Alas Tensas documented five victims under the age of 18 among the 49 femicides recorded from January to August, with ages ranging from seven to 17 years, highlighting the additional risk that underage girls face in unequal relationships.
As an institutional response, the regime published Resolution 174/2025 from the Ministry of Public Health to regulate comprehensive care for adolescent pregnancy, and in April, a program for the prevention of early fertility was launched in ten municipalities of Camagüey, Las Tunas, Holguín, and Granma, funded with one million euros by the European Union.
Despite these measures, the Deputy Chief of ONEI acknowledged that "greater comprehensiveness in the implementation of the policy is required," while UNFPA has set a goal of reducing the proportion of women aged 20 to 24 who married or joined before the age of 18 in Cuba to 15% by 2030.
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