Havana, March 8 (RHC)-- Army General Raúl Castro and Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez attended the closing ceremony of the 11th Congress of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) at the Convention Palace, Havana, on Friday, March 8, International Women's Day.

Accompanying Raúl and Díaz-Canel are the president of the Cuban Parliament, Esteban Lazo, the prime minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, the secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the PCC, Roberto Morales Ojeda, the secretary general of the FMC, Teresa Amarelle Boué, the secretary general of the CTC, Ulisés Guilarte de Nascimento, and other representatives of political, mass and social organizations.

The closing ceremony will be attended by the Commander of the Rebel Army José Ramón Machado Ventura and the member of the Pelotón de las Marianas, brigadier general and national vice-president of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, Delsa Esther "Teté" Puebla Viltre.

The Congress was attended by 323 delegates out of more than 3,200,000 members of the organization.

The session began with the screening of the audiovisual Fidel Castro and the Women's Revolution, about the foundational role of the Commander in Chief in the creation of the FMC and the importance he always gave to the struggles for women's rights.

In the plenary session, the opinions and recommendations approved in the four commissions of the Congress were disseminated, which had as topics the attention to youth as a guarantee of continuity of the organization, the internal functioning of the organization, the economic empowerment of women and the preventive work and social attention.

Raul Castro: "We men are very proud of women".

Army General Raul Castro Ruz, receives recognition during the XI Congress of the FMC. Photo Abel Padrón Padilla/ Cubadebate.

Army General Raúl Castro affirmed that "we men are very proud of the women", during the closing ceremony of the 11th Congress of the FMC.

"I feel politically satisfied and happy for the work they have done in the past, in difficult times, and for the work they are doing today, in times that are also very difficult due to the aggressiveness of Yankee imperialism," he said.

"We give them all a kiss, in the name of Vilma and also mine."

In another moment of the closing ceremony, the secretary general of the FMC, Teresa Amarelle Boué, gave a rug, handmade by the Trinidadian artisan Lucía Jiménez Hernández, to the Army General in recognition.

Díaz-Canel: "The Revolution needs a lot from Cuban women".

Miguel Díaz Canel Bermúdez, President of the Republic, delivers the closing remarks of the XI Congress of the FMC. Photo Abel Padrón Padilla/ Cubadebate.

In his closing remarks at the 11th FMC Congress, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel stressed that "the Revolution needs Cuban women very much, not only by resisting, but more than anything else, by fighting".

He thanked the federates for "the joy with which you have animated your Congress, you fearlessly face the most difficult moments of a nation that has been hardened in difficulty without losing the tenderness" and "the creative resistance, which you symbolize like no one else, and that inspires us, constantly renewing the energies of the Revolution".