Madrid/Rosa Idania Ferrer Pérez, a 46-year-old nurse, is the most recent victim of femicide in Cuba. As confirmed by independent platforms to Martí Noticias, the woman was murdered on November 30 at her home, located in the Elpidio Gómez batey in the Palmira municipality of Cienfuegos, by her own husband, who was later arrested.
“The victim was found dead after a history of repeated domestic violence, carried out by the alleged aggressor, identified by neighbors and relatives as a man with a history of violence, not only domestic, but also community,” Ileana Álvarez, director of the Alas Tensas Gender Observatory (Ogat), told the Cuban-American newspaper. The woman had been enduring abuse for years.
Finally, last Sunday, Ferrer Pérez, who worked at the local polyclinic, was “ferociously beaten and then strangled by her attacker, Arisbel Suárez, known as Felipillo, who, according to testimonies from people who knew them, became particularly violent when consuming alcohol,” details Martí Noticias.
Another recent case, recorded by the Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC) in its monthly report for November, is that of Beatriz López, on November 16 in the community of Vista Hermosa, in La Cuevita, San Miguel del Padrón (Havana). According to testimonies collected on social networks, the young woman was strangled in her home by a man she had gone out with that night.
The same sources indicate that both were seen together in a bar and, after returning to the house, “they began to argue strongly.” The attacker, a prisoner who was serving a sentence for previous murders and who was passing through, hit her, strangled her and left her in the bathroom, before leaving the house.
It was the neighbors who found her dead, after being alerted because she was not answering their calls. The subject, “extremely violent, with a long and feared criminal history in the area,” was arrested, according to the same reports. The girl, who has her mother in Peru, leaves a 13-year-old son, who lives with his father.
With these two femicides, there are 39 so far this year, according to the count kept. 14ymedio. The Government still has not made public the record of this type of crime, although it has already taken the first step to legally assist the victims of sexist violence: opening of a specialized office in Havanawith money from Canada and the UN, run by the National Organization of Collective Law Firms.
In 2024, and despite the under-reporting of data, Cuba turned out to be the fourth country with the highest rate of femicides in Latin America in 2024, a position it shares with Puerto Rico and Bolivia, with 1.4 murders per 100,000 women, according to a report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), published on November 25. Although these figures were calculated with the official data that the authorities provided to ECLAC – 76 cases that were tried in Cuban courts that year, regardless of when they were committed – they give an idea of the bad position of the Island on this issue.
That same 25th, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, independent platforms launched the #NoMeOlvides campaign
That same 25th, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, independent platforms launched the #ForgetMeNot campaign, to draw attention to the disappearance alerts on the Island, a total of 22.
One of them is also that of Felicia Gomez Diazwhich vanished on December 5 a year ago from La Ermita, Trinidad, in the province of Sancti Spíritus. His case remains a mystery. The 67-year-old woman was last seen when she went out to look for two cows, which she then told 14ymedio a niece of his, Loraine Rumbaut, did not arrive at the time they should, in the morning.
That day Gómez Díaz left the house dressed in a green coat, lycra, rubber boots and the blue cap of the Sancti Spíritus team, according to the disappearance alert launched by her relatives online. The call emphasized that he did not suffer from any mental illness.
The OCC, in its monthly report, also referred to the disappearances that occurred in November, within the section of citizen insecurity: more than five were recorded. Under the same heading, the organization, based in Miami, reported a total of 12 murders – men or women – and numerous robberies with violence.
