By Javier Herrera
HAVANA TIMES – I’ve said it a thousand times: I wish I didn’t have to write about this devastating topic ever again, but if I don’t, I feel like I’m betraying my conscience. The value of women’s lives in Cuba continues to be minimal, and they are snatched away in plain sight, with the indifference of authorities who only apprehend the perpetrator without having done anything before to prevent the crime.
In the past year, feminist groups like YoSíTeCreo in Cuba and the Gender Observatory of Alas Tensas magazine documented 88 feminicides, while investigating nine more cases lacking reliable or police data. These are 88 murders that leave broken families, orphaned children, traumas, pain… what’s worse, often the killer is the father or stepfather of those children who will grow up without their mothers and who sometimes witnessed the events or were attacked themselves.
Thanks to the pressure from independent platforms of civil society, the Cuban regime was forced to acknowledge the violent death of 117 women in 2023, though without specifying how many were victims of gender-based violence and downplaying the events with the words of the designated president Miguel Diaz-Canel, stating that “in the case of Cuba, the truth is exaggerated for political purposes by dissident platforms.”
In less than 15 days of 2024, three women lost their lives at the hands of their partners or ex-partners, almost equaling the weekly death average of 2023 when a woman died approximately every 4.14 days.
The first of the homicides occurred on January 2 in the province of Camagüey. Diana Rosa Cervantes Mejias, 29, was brutally attacked by her partner, a person who was on bail for assaulting another individual.
The second woman murdered this year was in the locality of Reparto Santiesteban (El Guarro, Holguín) on January 9th. Yanilsa Zamora Miranda was killed in her home by her partner. She is survived by three daughters and a son, two of whom are minors.
The third feminicide this month occurred on January 11. Dailene Fernandez Carasa was murdered by her partner in her home in Alamar in Habana del Este. The killer, after committing the act, committed suicide by jumping from the 5th floor of the building. Dailene Fernandez leaves behind a nine-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.
In this last case, it is noteworthy that neighbors reported calling the police in time to prevent the tragedy, but they did nothing to enter the house where the events were taking place.
Currently, these independent feminist projects are verifying four feminicide alerts, two from 2023 and two from the current year, so the figures could worsen.
The effectiveness with which independent media have investigated and brought these cases to light led the regime, in 2023, to propose an Administrative Registry “that allows for real-time information on the violent death of women and girls due to gender reasons.”
Feminist organizations consider this measure poor and insufficient, not in line with the severity of the events. They demand that the government take concrete actions to prevent and punish gender-based violence. They call for the classification of the specific crime of feminicides, the creation of shelters for endangered women and their children, the legalization of activism, and the approval of a comprehensive law against gender-based violence.
The issue of feminicide is quite complex and impossible to address solely from a police and legal standpoint, although it is important to pursue and repress it as such. Other social mechanisms are necessary, such as hotlines where one can call to receive advice, file complaints, even anonymously, and have them taken seriously and investigated accordingly. The opening of counseling centers in the community, discussions in workplaces and educational institutions, as well as in neighborhoods, would also be very useful.
It would even be very convenient to divert at least part of the forces dedicated to pursuing, harassing, and suppressing independent platforms, including non-political ones like feminist platforms, and dedicate them to investigating reports of violence. Those who boast of “knowing everything” during interrogations and seizures of dissidents and other project members who do not align with the regime could well know who the abusers are who are at risk of committing a feminicide and prevent it in time.
The population fulfills its duty by reporting when it learns of an ongoing incident in time, as do feminist platforms, but due to legal, resource, and real capacity issues, they cannot take on the police or state’s work. In the end, the police and the state are paid with the money and labor of the people, and they owe it to them.
Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times
