MADRID, Spain.- After the recent statements by Mariela Castro Espín, director of the island’s state Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), on the situation of trans political prisoner Brenda Díaz, which she described as “very good”, the Women’s Network of Cuba and platforms that defend women’s rights set up a website this Thursday to gather signatures demanding the approval of a gender law on the island.
“We demand the approval of a gender law that guarantees standards of protection for women”, they said the platforms.
Likewise, through their social networks, after highlighting that Brenda Díaz remains in a men’s prison, they questioned: “We ask this question to the State, which demonstrates a lack of knowledge of gender identity and a lack of political will: ` Could the State explain the action protocols towards transgender women in Cuban prisons?’”.
For Brenda Díaz, for all women, the Women’s Network of Cuba called to sign the petition at https://leydegeneroya.org.
Proposals for the gender law in Cuba
- Expedite the development of an Organic Law for Comprehensive Protection against gender violence, through the elaboration of the strategy that allows the measures to be implemented at all levels.
- Assume transidentities as a specific group. Denying them their legal personality is also an act of violence.
- Legitimize and formalize the necessary data on gender violence, which allow effective public policies to be carried out.
- Promote comprehensive prevention campaigns that involve all of civil society, and that mix information on risk factors and protective factors, as well as that are adapted to the needs and nature of the victims.
- Guarantee comprehensive affective-sexual education from an early age in schools and in the family, with an approach based on equality and violence prevention, which generates children and adolescents prepared to identify and reject violent behaviors and establish healthy relationships.
- Establish protocols for the detection of gender violence in all settings, which are harmonized at the state and independent levels, and which include re-education or training work in the face of macho attitudes and behaviors.
This Wednesday Mariela Castro said in a press conference that Brenda Díaz, a 9/11 protester, was “very well” in the male section of the prison for people with HIV Cuba-Panama.
“Her mother even expressed that she felt very calm that Brenda was still there,” added Castro Espín, for whom the information about the case of the young Cuban is “little gossip” and is part of a “media show by the press and corporate agencies.
After Castro Espín’s statements were released, Brenda Díaz’s mother, Ana María García, denied the official information about her daughter’s condition in conversation with Radio Television Martí.
“All the things that Brenda has been through in prison have been real. Brenda has not been treated medically and there they do not give her any type of medication,” García said. “And the [antir]retrovirals that are now being given to him, because I also had to take him three months ago [antir]retrovirals. That is an HIV prison and they are obliged to give him all the medicines”, she added.
Brenda Díaz was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the alleged crimes of “public disorder and sabotage” in the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021, plus a further seven months for contempt in a recently held second trial.
