Cuban activists denounced this Monday two new femicides on the Island, bringing to 31 the victims confirmed by sexist violence observatories so far this year.
“We regret the femicides that occurred on October 27 and 28 in Camagüey and Villa Clara, respectively,” the Cuban platform reported on social networks I do believe you (YSTC), dedicated to the support and accompaniment of people in situations of sexist violence.
Regarding these events, they emphasize that, in the case of Yanet Martínez, 47, a resident of Lugareño (Minas, Camagüey), there is the aggravating circumstance that the aggressor is presumably a police officer. The other reported death was that of Lisandra Crespo, 18, attacked by her ex-partner on public roads, in Sagua la Grande (Villa Clara).
YSTC highlighted October 2022 as “a month of numerous alerts and confirmed acts of extreme violence against women in Cuba.” The Cuban authorities do not publish statistics on femicides and the official media do not report on them, the agency points out Eph.
The activists stressed that in addition to the six cases they have verified in the month, this platform “has unsuccessfully investigated three other alerts of possible femicides.” Likewise, they insist on their criteria that “without a real response to the problem of sexist violence or the participation of activism, these avoidable deaths of women will not be contained.”
On October 21, the independent feminist magazine Tense Wings, which also records these events, stated on Twitter that “victims of femicides have not stopped increasing in recent weeks.” He then cited the names of the most recent victims of sexist crimes: Yadira Sueiro Pérez, Leudelvis Leyva Rivera, Nordis Morales and Odalia Jorge González.
The activists criticize that femicide is not classified as a crime in the current Cuban Penal Code and that there are no shelters for victims of domestic abuse, nor a Comprehensive Law against gender violence.
In his opinion, “although eradicating femicides and gender violence is a matter that concerns everyone, the political will of the institutions in power is a fundamental link in this social struggle.”
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The new Penal Code, approved on May 15, contemplates gender-based violence, but does not classify the crime of femicide.
Tense Wings registered at least 36 femicides last year in Cuba at the hands of their partners or ex-partners, and in 2020 another 32 had a similar fate, including four vicarious murders.
Efe/OnCuba.
