Neisa López, 29, was allegedly murdered by a former police officer convicted of killing his wife and attacking his sister-in-law. The man, who was on probation for being a cancer patient, stabbed the young woman, who worked as her nurse and who has become the ninth victim of femicide in Cuba so far this year.
His death gave him know the Women’s Network of Cuba this Friday, which also confirmed the sexist murder of Arisdani Viamontes Tomás, 43 years old and mother of a 19-year-old girl. The woman, originally from Camagüey, was allegedly murdered by her partner on January 27 after telling her your intention to file for divorce.
The case of Neisa López, from Bayamo, in Granma, is however the most shocking due to the accumulation of negligence that surrounds it. Mother of two children aged eight and four years respectively, the nurse cared for her alleged murderer without knowing her criminal record, according to her stepmother, Lien Alvarado Cruz, in a post on Facebook.
According to his version, when he learned of his situation, he submitted his resignation, but his victimizer did not accept it, starting a wave of threats and harassment. Alvarado Cruz affirms that the young woman reported him to the Municipal Unit of the National Police in Bayamo, where the case did not progress “as usual.”
On the day of her murder, the subject waited for her at the exit of her new job and stabbed her as many times as “years before he gave his wife.” “He turned himself in, admitting it. He said like this: ‘I already killed her, so what?’, He pointed out.
Mother of two children of eight and four years respectively, the nurse cared for his alleged murderer without knowing his criminal record
Previous feminicide occurred last Friday in Camalote, Camagüey, a fact that generated great commotion among Cubans due to the conditions and the escalation of violence in the province. Leidy Bacallao Santana, 17, sought refuge in the police station after threats from her ex-partner, Elesvan Hidalgo, a 50-year-old man, but he chased her and ended up killing her with a machete in the police unit.
In the absence of official statistics, the collective Yo Sí te Creo, Alas Tensas and the Red Femenina keep a count of the cases of sexist violence that at the end of 2022 claimed the lives of 36 Cuban women. In addition, seven attempted femicides and two matricides were recorded.
In the midst of the escalation of deaths due to sexist violence, the official press came out this Friday with an article in cubadebate in which he does not offer any figures for femicides and argues that it is not known “if more women are actually dying” on the Island, because “we do not have all the data we need”, a record that should be kept by the Ministry of the Interior.
The official newspaper alleges that the closest instruments to measure gender violence correspond to a 2019 report on compliance with the UN 2030 Agenda and a 2016 survey. The first document reported that the femicide rate was 0 99 per 100,000 women aged 15 or over, while in the second it was confirmed that 39.6% of Cuban women have suffered violence at some point in their lives.
cubadebate recognizes the need to have timely statistics to “portray the real state of the problem beyond nuances and instrumentalizations”, where traits such as the ages of the victims and their perpetrators, areas with the highest frequency of violence, contexts “that motivate the facts” and “cultural causes”.
The cases of male violence at the end of 2022 claimed the lives of 36 Cuban women. In addition, seven attempted femicides were registered.
The lack of public data is one of the main claims of the groups, as well as the inclusion of femicide as an aggravating circumstance or offense defined in the Penal Code. The Women’s Network in Cuba advocates for a new legal body that guarantees care and response to victims, since the Island is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that does not have a comprehensive law against sexist violence.
In its latest petition, the group demands a reform of the justice system that goes through the training of judges and public order agents on sexist violence to the creation of special courts or police stations with female staff. In the same way, it asks that investigation procedures be established, and that the “gender initiatives and spaces of civil society” be respected.
In addition to prevention, the group believes that a comprehensive law should include care and assistance for survivors and their families, especially for minor children or children under custody. In the last three years, he added, 102 women have died as victims of male violence.
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