HAVANA.- A total of 117 women were murdered between January and October 2023 in Cuba75% of the cases occurred in the victims’ homes and the aggressors were their own partners.
This number exceeds the record carried out by independent observatories that account for 81 femicides in that same period. The authorities of the regime, who do not use the term “femicides” to reduce the responsibility of the State in this type of crimesthey talk about 117 cases of “violent death of women.”
According to the official report, the majority of these cases occurred in the provinces of Matanzas, Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Granma and Guantánamo.
The data offered at the VII Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party also indicate that a total of 70 minors were orphaned as a result of these violent events.
According to the report, currently in Cuba there are more than 16,000 women and girls who live in situations of risk due to gender violence, the majority black and mulatto with a low level of schooling.
“The number of nuclei in this situation is 9,579, in which 16,116 women and girls live together,” they stated.
“It is relevant that, of the female people over 15 years of age who live in a situation of violence, 60% are black and mulatto, under 35 years of age, with an average of ninth grade schooling. A portion of them are disengaged from work or are housewives,” reports the Granma newspaper, cited by martinoticias.com.
The number of victims of gender violence makes Cuba the country in Latin America with the highest increase in femicides in 2023, according to the Latin American Map of Femicides (MLF), published at the end of November.
Although the officials who participated in the meeting spoke of various strategies to try to stop gender violence in Cuba, they only specifically mentioned the proposal for an Interoperable Administrative Registry, presented by the Prosecutor’s Office, to have real-time information “on the death violence against women and girls for gender reasons. However, they did not clarify whether this information would be public.
“An action protocol was created for better communication of cases of femicides. This communication component constitutes one of the main dissatisfactions, both of those responsible for offering the information and of the recipients,” said Teresa Amarelle Boué, general secretary. of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC). The official also explained that the Council of Ministers had approved an action protocol for “situations of discrimination, violence and harassment in the workplace.”
For her part, the Attorney General of the Republic, Yamila Peña Ojeda, commented that since 2020 they have been working “with greater intentionality on these issues from a comprehensive perspective.” However, the crime of feminicide was left out of the current Penal Code approved in May 2022 despite citizens’ demands for it to be included.
Last week, the Alas Tensas Gender Observatory (OGAT), the Yo Sí te Creo Platform in Cuba (YSTCC), the Cuban Women’s Network, the Virtual Museum of Memory against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and DemoAmlat (Electoral Transparency program) presented to Parliament a new request for a Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence.
Among the demands included in the document is the lack of effectiveness of agreements such as the Comprehensive Strategy for prevention and attention to gender violence and in the family scenario.
Source: With information from martinoticias.com
