Obstetric gynecological violence as an expression of gender-based violence. Perspective from the Cuban Criminal Law

Abstract

The proliferation of practices associated with gynecological-obstetric violence in the process of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum implies an injury to sexual and reproductive rights, as well as to other human rights such as human dignity, equality and non-discrimination, access to health, protection of maternity and paternity or the integral development of children. Moreover, in the most serious cases, it may involve an affectation to life or bodily integrity, which imposes the need to offer a response from the Law in order to counteract its scope and negative effects. Thus, Constitutional, Family and Criminal Law have the mission of establishing mechanisms aimed at its confrontation and prevention, and the determination of the enforceability of medical criminal liability. In the Cuban context, marked by the profound legislative reform to which our legal system has been subjected, new norms have been enacted which, from their scope of action, should be projected in function of promoting the humanitarian conception not only of childbirth, but of the whole process of gestation, so that it develops respectfully. Hence the importance of analyzing the novelties that have been introduced in this area in the recently approved normative provisions.