Mr. President,
As the Special Rapporteur rightly notes in her report, unilateral coercive measures imposed against Cuba have a negative impact on mothers.
The economic blockade imposed by the United States, which has been further intensified by increasingly ruthless measures, including a brutal energy siege for the past five months, is an illegal act of violence with devastating consequences.
Our women and girls suffer daily from prolonged power outages, and difficulties in accessing food, water, transportation, municipal services, and all basic services.
Hospitals are operating under extreme conditions. The lack of energy disrupts the functioning of incubators for newborns, dialysis machines, and operating theatres.
The infant mortality rate has doubled, rising from 4 to 9.2 per 1,000 live births. The survival rate of girls and boys with cancer has fallen from 85% to 65%. The surgical waiting list in the country exceeds 100,300 patients, including 12,000 girls and boys.
Access to medical care is hindered for 34,000 pregnant women and nearly 5 million people in Cuba living with chronic diseases, many of them women and girls.
The national immunization programme for millions of Cuban children is at serious risk due to difficulties in sustaining vaccine production.
The sinister plan of the United States is to create a humanitarian crisis in order to provoke social unrest.
The Council cannot passively watch this policy of suffocation continue to cause shortages, deprivation, and extreme hardship for an entire population, including millions of women and girls, for political reasons.
Thank you.