The state press finally recognized its inattention to gender-based violence in Cuba, though only after years of work by civil society organizations and the independent press, which have shone a light on the problem.
To be fair to the state's media: could they pay attention to gender-based violence, except to praise the "work" done by the regime, which claims to be "at the forefront" in the fight against it? Could they really speak of femicides in a country supposedly free of them by the work and grace of the Revolution?
Either of these things meant challenging the official rhetoric of the Cuban regime; specifically, that of Mariela Castro Espín. Asking the state press for criticism of the government's discourse is like expecting pears from an elm tree.
In November 2020, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Raúl Castro's daughter and the director of the state-run National Sex Education Center (CENESEX) stated that Cuba was "at the forefront in the international struggle against gender violence."
Data from the Observatory for Gender Equality in Latin America and the Caribbean contradicted this, however, and actually gave the island poor marks: only three laws to combat gender violence, a lack of restraining orders or distancing measures to protect victims and, in general, a dearth of protection mechanisms for them. The Cuban regime also legitimizes and exercises political violence against female activists, dissidents and independent journalists, while in other countries in the region, such as Bolivia, there is legislation against this type of violence.
In said year women's platforms and independent civil society gender observatories registered 32 deaths from macho violence.
There are no official statistics on this. The Women's Network of Cuba, the Yo Sí Te Creo (I Believe You) platform in Cuba, and the Gender Observatory of the Alas Tensas Magazine (OGAT), without counting on the resources of the State, and working under constant harassment and attempts to discredit them, have filled the gaps left by the official information.
In 2015 Raúl Castro's daughter said in an interview with the newspaper Tiempo Argentino: "We do not have femicides, for example. Because Cuba is not a violent country, and that is an effect of the Revolution," she added.
If Fidel Castro had declared Cuba illiteracy-free in 1961, why couldn't his niece declare it femicide-free 54 years later, especially in the absence of any official records to refute her?
How did Cuba go from not having femicides, "thanks to the Revolution," to registering 32 in 2020? Were they not happening until 2015, when Mariela Castro made her claim? Did the Revolution stop protecting women, or was Raul Castro's daughter lying to the Argentine newspaper? Or was there simply no attention paid to the phenomenon in the country, as recently acknowledged by journalists with the official media?
Feminicide is, precisely, the ultimate expression of gender violence, but Mariela Castro assured Cubans that the regime was at the forefront in the fight against it, when the Yo Sí Te Creo platform in Cuba had already verified 30 of these crimes in 2020.
The reality has shown that, contrary to what Mariela Castro claimed, in terms of gender violence, the Cuban State not only lags behind the region, but civil society too.
In early March 2021, when at least 10 femicides had occurred during the year, the general secretary of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), Teresa Amarelle, announced the creation of the Cuban Gender Observatory. This would include updated records of femicides and other cases of macho violence. The announcement came four months after the Cuban women's platform YoSíTeCreo launched the Cuban Femicides Observatory.
In May of 2022, seven years after denial of the existence of femicides in Cuba, Castro Espín herself asked the National Assembly of Popular Power (ANPP) to criminalize this conduct in the Criminal Code. Thus, though without recognizing it, she joined the appeals of feminist activists and civil society platforms, which had been drawing attention to the absence of this crime in the draft law.
The ANPP did not criminalize femicide in the Code. It included it within the crime of murder. A positive aspect of the new Cuban criminal law, in terms of gender, is that this is considered an aggravating circumstance in the commission of crimes.
It also contains special adaptation articles. This means that, in cases involving this type of violence, the judges do not take into account the general rules, as in the previous Code, but rather specific rules incorporated into it.
The Cuban ANPP, with a female majority, also did not include a comprehensive law against gender violence until on its legislative schedule until 2023. This rule will have to wait until 2028.
In December of last year, the international association Mundo Sur included the island, for the first time, in its Latin American Feminicides Map report, thanks to the work of the OGAT and Yo Sí te Creo in Cuba.
The efforts of these and other organizations, in addition to the independent press, confirmed 36 femicides in 2021 and 34 in 2022, in addition to the 32 in 2020. Thus far in 2023, 17 have been verified.
As for the state press, it was not until the beginning of last February, when independent platforms and observatories had already confirmed seven femicides in Cuba in 2023 (including that of a teenage girl at a police station) that it recognized the absence of official statistics, protocols and effective programs, as well as legal loopholes, which hamper attempts to avert these deaths. The most recent data on gender violence and femicides date from 2016.
One month and nine femicides later, the official press finally admitted its inattention to the issue of Violence Against Women in Cuba.
"As of March 8, 15 femicides have occurred in the country this year; some in Camagüey, and the media's attention to them was deficient, so the self-criticism was strong, while recognizing some isolated, positive exceptions," said the official newspaper Adelante, without specifying the source of the statistics or mentioning the Cuban civil society platforms.
Would it be too much to ask Cuban official media journalists to give some credit to independent civil society? In any case, it is appreciated that, even if only in terms of gender violence, they admit that they are not doing their jobs.