Published Sunday, May 7, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Mothers and Women Against Repression is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advocacy of human rights and freedom for Cuba. In light of the Elian Gonzalez case, the group notes how children and their parents are viewed there.
The following are articles from the Code Governing Children and Youth in Cuba, as adopted and published on Friday, June 30, 1978, in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba:
ARTICLE 1. The code governing Childhood and Youth regulates the participation of the children and young adults who are younger than the age of 30 in building the new society and establishes the obligations of individuals, agencies and institutions that take part in their education, according to
the goal of promoting the formation of the communist personality in the young generation.
ARTICLE 3. The communist formation of the young generation is a valued aspiration of the State, the family, educators, the political, social and mass organizations that continually act so that, in the task itself of furthering socialism, the ideological values of communism may spring up and
develop in children and the youth, as well as the attributes and qualities that will allow them to fulfill their role as heirs, active participants and continuing agents of the revolutionary work, by inculcating and fostering in them: dedication to the cause of socialism and communism and loyalty to
the working class and their Marxist-Leninist vanguard, the Communist Party of Cuba.
ARTICLE 5. Society and the State ensure that persons who come in contact with children and the youth in their education process are an example for the formation of their communist personality and motivate citizens who gain merits in said work.
ARTICLE 8. Society and the State work for the effective protection of the youth against all influences that are contrary to their communist formation.
ARTICLE 33. The State places special attention on the teaching of Marxism-Leninism, due to its importance in the ideological formation and political culture of young students.
FINAL PROVISIONS -- 1: The State agencies and companies and state administration officials -- as well as the minors, their parents or guardians, and the youth, at whom the rules and regulations contained in this Code are directed -- are obligated to comply therewith.
In the event of any infraction or breach of the provisions set forth in the preceding paragraph, the applicable accountability is exacted before the academic and administrative authorities, and even before the Courts of Justice, when the violation is against the precepts established in the
current legislation.
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