Boxing Sisters: These powerful portraits depict Cuba’s teen fighters

Namibia Flores Rodriguez is a Cuban boxing champion – a fact widely known, though she’s never officially competed for her country. Raised in Havana, she turned to the sport after a difficult childhood, and it became her lifeblood. “Boxing is my everything,” she tells Dazed. “It’s like a church where I can find peace with myself. It gives me wisdom and strategies to face every obstacle life has put in my way. I’m a better person today because of it.” 

Flores trained religiously for decades, hoping that Cuba’s historic ban on women’s boxing – introduced in the 1950s – would lift, and she could finally represent her country in the ring and on the podium. That change came, at long last, in 2022, but only after Flores had aged out of Olympic eligibility. “The legalisation of women’s boxing was a bittersweet moment for me,” says the 49-year-old. “I felt a happiness I’d never known before, but also an incomparable sadness. So many mixed emotions.”

Now, Flores is devoted to mentoring and motivating the next generation of boxers – as captured by photographer Constanze Han in her new photo series, Boxing Sisters. Shortly after the legalisation, Han spent time with Flores in Havana as she trained with two national champions, 16-year-old Magyelis Lazara Masso Bell and 18-year-old Magda Emely Masso Bell. The pair have been boxing since childhood under the guidance of their father and coach, Maikel Masso.

“Despite being a longtime fan of the sport, I was aware of how extensively Cuban boxing had been photographed, often to the point of cliché, and I tried to avoid it,” says Han. “What shifted my focus was encountering a story that wasn’t only about boxing, but about two generations of women and how their personal dreams are shaped by their surroundings.” 

Han’s images are part of a broader body of work about Cuban identity, with boxing tightly woven into the island’s history. Over the last 50 years, Cuba has won more Olympic golds in boxing than in any other sport, and is renowned for its distinctive style of rhythmic footwork, sharp defence and elegant counterpunching that favours precision over aggression – the philosophy of “Pegar y que no te peguen” (hit and don’t get hit).

After Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, the government turned boxing into a symbol of socialist identity, concentrating talent within a rigorous state-funded system that nurtured athletes from childhood through elite academies and training camps. Professional boxing was banned in 1962, officially to prevent the commercial exploitation of athletes and to promote the Marxist ideal of amateur sport for national glory rather than personal profit. In the years that followed, Cuban fighters went on to dominate the amateur world, achieving repeated Olympic success and national icon status.

But for decades, women were excluded from this legacy. Despite Cuba’s egalitarian ideals and equal representation in other contact sports such as taekwondo and wrestling, boxing was deemed too violent for women and potentially harmful to reproductive health – claims widely criticised as sexist. “Cuban women are there to show their beauty, not to take punches,” Pedro Roque, then-coach of Cuba’s national team, told journalists in 2009. The ban was also heavily influenced by Vilma Espín, the late wife of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro and the head of the Federation of Cuban Women, who reportedly considered women's faces "too beautiful and precious" to be hit. As such, female boxers trained informally in community gyms and basement spaces, without state support. It wasn’t until December 2022 that women’s boxing was finally legalised, marking a historic step towards inclusion.

For the two sisters, the change was immediately felt. “What’s impacted my life most since the legalisation is that, even though I started practising at a very young age, I’ve already been able to compete in national and international events,” says Magyelis, who recently won her first international championship. “It’s been a challenge and an opportunity,” adds Magda. “Knowing that all the effort we put into training and the dedication we give to boxing can officially bear fruit and be recognised.”

Han photographed the women as they trained in plazas, on street corners, and at the iconic Gimnasio de Boxeo Rafael Trejo. Tucked between the faded pastel walls of residential buildings in a courtyard in Old Havana, the open‑air gym has been a beloved crucible for generations of boxing talent – and a hub for local supporters. Magda and Magyelis are coming of age after the formalisation of women’s boxing, at a time when more doors are open for competition; 2022 also marked the year Cuba lifted its ban on professional boxing, allowing elite fighters to compete for prize money abroad for the first time in 60 years. Yet their trajectory continues to be shaped by these grassroots spaces.

“The persistence of community-based training reflects a culture rooted in collective experience, accessibility, and the rhythms of everyday life,” Han observes. “What really stood out to me was how boxing connects people. With the sport opening up to women, it felt meaningful that Maikel could share this experience with his daughters. The interactions between Namibia, Magda, and Magyelis also felt significant, with one woman having paved the way for the younger.” 

Han was first drawn to Cuba nearly two decades ago by its political history, particularly the Cuban Revolution and what it came to symbolise for leftist resistance movements around the world. Visiting for the first time in 2007, she found the lived reality far more complex than the Cold War narratives she’d been taught at school in the States. Witnessing the direct impact of US foreign policy on another country became a connecting thread in her photographic work, including projects in Taiwan, her family’s homeland. “Over time, I’ve come to understand Cuba as a country shaped by layers of contradiction, constantly adapting to both external pressures and internal shifts. I’ve developed a deep connection to the culture and formed relationships that draw me back year after year,” she says.

Returning after the pandemic – and following the reversal of the brief diplomatic opening during the Obama years – Han found conditions harsher than ever. Older Cubans told her it felt worse than the Special Period of the 1990s, when the collapse of the USSR, Cuba’s former ally, plunged the island into severe economic hardship. Today, the pressures facing Cuba are immense: US policy is increasingly interventionist and antagonistic, with domino effects on Cuba’s economy and ongoing tensions between external constraint and internal responsibility; crucial allies like Venezuela are grappling with crises that reverberate across the region; and mass emigration continues to reshape society. At the same time, Han observes real shifts taking place – “increased internet access and connectivity, the growth of small businesses, alongside the resilience of long-held cultures and traditions.”

“All of these factors sharpened my understanding of what it means to call Cuba home, and of the emotional weight carried by those who choose to stay,” the photographer reflects. “Some remain because of family ties; others because starting over elsewhere feels just as daunting – or simply because this is their homeland.” She adds that the experiences of ordinary Cubans are far from uniform. “I’m drawn to stories that counter dominant narratives of hardship and migration – stories of people who, in the midst of struggle, continue to build, work towards a future, and sustain a genuine love for their country.”

Like many of Cuba’s top boxers, Namibia Flores was offered training contracts abroad but chose to stay in the hopes of representing her country, even when its rules worked against her and her wings felt “trapped”. “Her love for boxing, and Cuba, is so deep that it feels unconditional,” Han says. “The grace and strength she’s shown in accepting the disappointment of a part of her dream passing beyond her control speaks to trials and difficulties many of us can relate to. Her story may not unfold as one might hope, but it remains deeply inspiring.”

Han hopes her images can serve as an archive, a visual record of a moment when profound change feels inevitable, for the country at large and for the people she photographs.

Quotes translated from Spanish. This project, and article, would not have been possible without the help of producer Karla Batte and Fidel Rosell García. 

Follow Constanze Han on Instagram to keep up with her work. To learn more about women’s boxing in Cuba, watch Karen Sotolongo Menendez’s documentary Guantes sin Ring and Maceo Frost’s Too Beautiful: Our Right to Fight.