Cuba's 2022 Family Code (Código de las Familias)

On 25 September 2022, Cuba held a national referendum, promoted by the National Assembly of People's Power together with the Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, on a wholly rewritten Family Code (Código de las Familias, Ley No. 156/2022) replacing the 1975 code, following a public-consultation process comprising roughly 79,000 neighbourhood meetings.

The new Code makes shared domestic and care responsibility between spouses an explicit legal duty, bans discrimination based on sex, gender identity and sexual orientation, treats protection from family violence as a state obligation, legalises same-sex marriage and adoption, regulates altruistic (non-commercial) surrogacy for the first time, and raises the minimum marriage age to 18 for both sexes, closing a prior exception allowing girls to marry at 14.

The referendum passed by 66.85% in favour to 33.15% against, on 74.12% turnout — a genuinely contested vote by Cuban standards.

The UN CEDAW Committee's October 2024 review welcomed the reform and Cuba's high female parliamentary representation, but flagged persistent gaps between the law's text and lived reality, including unresolved concerns on sex trafficking and unpaid care-work burdens. Human Rights Watch, without disputing the substance of the reforms, cautioned that a one-party state with tightly controlled media and no independent electoral oversight should not make family and minority rights contingent on a popularity vote, and noted no independent Cuban civil-society body currently audits implementation.