Havana/The murder of Yaniuska Machado, which occurred approximately three days ago in the Las Mercedes neighborhood of the municipality Bartolome Masó, province of Granma, has been confirmed by independent platforms as the most recent feminicide recorded in Cuba. The victim had a romantic relationship with the alleged aggressor, although authorities have not yet offered official details about the crime. This fact has caused deep consternation among neighbors, family members and people close to the victim.
Days before, in the San Juan y Martínez municipality, Pinar del Río province, the body of Mileidys Dueñas Pérez was found buried in the patio of her home. The woman had also been missing for several days, and her case was confirmed by local sources and independent platforms. The victim was a native of Pilotos, Consolación del Sur, Pinar del Río.
From the same municipality is another woman whose whereabouts remain unknown, Yanicel Valdés, known in the community as “La Rusa.”
With these crimes there are five femicides so far in 2026. According to the registry of 14ymediolast year closed with 42 cases of feminicide, a figure built from complaints and monitoring by independent organizations and activists, in the absence of official data. In Cuba there is no transparent state registry that allows the exact magnitude of these crimes to be accurately measured.
The preliminary annual report of the Tense Wings Observatory corresponding to 2025 indicated that more than 90% of the murders of women were committed by people close to the victims, mainly partners or ex-partners, and the majority occurred in domestic spaces, with the predominant use of knives, which shows violence in intimate environments. Young and adult women accounted for the largest number of victims and in more than 60% of the cases there were dependent people in their care, which multiplies the social impact of each crime. The report also warns about the under-reporting of sexual violence, documents dozens of disappearances and places femicides within a structural crisis marked by economic precariousness, lack of state protection and absence of comprehensive public policies, which reinforces the urgency of prevention, transparency and effective care for victims.
90% of murders of women were committed by people close to the victims, mainly partners or ex-partners
Various studies currently place Cuba among the countries with the highest rates of feminicide in Latin America, with 1.4 murders per 100,000 womena figure that confirms the structural severity of the problem and the urgency of having reliable public statistics.
The persistence of these crimes has led organizations and activists to reiterate their demands to the State. These include the approval of a comprehensive law against gender violence, the creation of safe shelters for women at risk, the implementation of effective protection protocols and greater transparency in the publication of official data.
In recent months some institutional measures have been announced. In Havana it was recently inaugurated a guidance and counseling office for victims of sexist violence, promoted by the National Organization of Collective Law Firms with the support of the Canadian Embassy and the United Nations Population Fund. In addition, a national registration and monitoring system was approved and an official campaign focused on prevention was presented.
However, relatives of the victims and activists consider that these actions remain insufficient, since neither a reduction in cases nor a comprehensive response to the sustained increase in sexist violence in the country has been achieved.
