MADRID, Spain.- A new femicide was registered in Cuba this week, for a total of 28 so far in 2023. The young Anay Toya was murdered by a person “with whom she had an affective relationship,” reported the Gender Observatory of taut wings (OGAT).
The crime occurred on May 15 in Güines, Mayabeque province. Anay Toya was between 25 and 28 years old and leaves behind two young children.
Also last April in Mayabeque, in the municipality of Nueva Paz, she was murdered by her partner Elisbel Lamorú Monjes.
This week The Supreme People’s Court of Cuba (TSP) reported that during 2022 it handed down 18 sentences for sexist violence. This figure is much lower than that registered by the observatories of the feminist magazine Alas Tensas and the YoSíTeCreo platform in Cuba, which in 2022 verified 34 femicides in the country.
In an official statement, the TSP pointed out that all those responsible for these crimes were sentenced to imprisonment for more than 25 years and, in some cases, life imprisonment.
According to considerations of the observatories of taut wings and of YoSíTeCreo in Cuba, stopping femicides on the island will only be possible with “comprehensive measures to prevent and address gender violence.” And they emphasize that “prevention and reparation are the answer to femicides, never punitiveness.”
In this sense, on repeated occasions they have asked the island’s regime —without obtaining a response— to classify the specific crime of fem(ni)cide; access to the official figures of murders is offered to be able to determine the real dimension of the femi(ni)cides; shelters and rescue systems are created for women and their children in danger; activism is legalized and a Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence is approved.
