Cuba's LGBTQ+ trajectory is genuinely remarkable for the region. In 2022, 67% of Cubans voted yes in a referendum to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption — the first communist state to do so. Constitutional protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity has existed since 2019. CENESEX, the national sex-education centre, has been an unusual state-sponsored advocate. The complexity: this is still an authoritarian state, so LGBTQ+ activism that operates outside government structures is far more precarious than the strong legal picture suggests. The score here reflects Cuba's law and public opinion (Equaldex Equality Index), not the freedom to organise independently.

Cuba has been governed by a single party since 1959. There are no competitive elections, no independent political opposition and no free press; independent journalists face arrest. The 2021 protests (11J) were met with mass detentions and long sentences. Freedom House classifies Cuba as "Not Free" and Reporters Without Borders ranks it 166th of 180 for press freedom (2025). Internet access is restricted and monitored. At the same time Cuba posts high social indicators — literacy, healthcare, life expectancy — that many authoritarian states do not. These don't offset the political repression, but they're part of an accurate picture.

Cuba scores well on women's rights by global and regional standards. Women make up over half of the Cuban parliament — one of the highest rates in the world, driven partly by state quotas — and female labour-market participation and education are high. The 2022 Family Code strengthened protections against domestic violence, though under-reporting and cultural machismo persist. Note: this score is based on Cuba's last WEF Global Gender Gap ranking (2021); Cuba is not in the current edition, so the figure is an estimate — hence the ~. Abortion is legal on request up to 12 weeks.

Cuba's judiciary operates under the authority of the Communist Party; there is no judicial independence in the Western sense, and arbitrary detention of political dissidents is well documented. Cuba is not ranked by the WJP Rule of Law Index, so this score is estimated from the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators (Rule of Law) and lined up with the WJP scale using the 139 countries that appear in both — see the note in Sources below. That's why it carries a ~. For ordinary tourists the legal system functions predictably; the real risk concentrates on political activity, journalism and activism.

Not every country is measured on every value. Where the public data doesn't exist, we'd rather tell you than fill the gap with a guess — and Cuba is one of those cases.

The figure on our other country pages comes from the US Department of Labor's yearly review of what governments are doing about the worst forms of child labour, and that review covers the 131 countries which hold trade preferences with the United States. Cuba is not one of them, so it is never assessed. Household surveys do measure child labour in some countries outside that system, but they are run in different years with different questions, so a number taken from one of them would not mean the same thing as the tiered assessment used elsewhere on this site. We would rather show nothing than a number that isn't comparable.