The official press revealed that, in the first half of 2023, seven women were murdered in the province of Matanzas. The data, published this Saturday in the newspaper Gironbreaks with the usual silence of the ruling party on femicides in Cuba and offers details until now kept secret, such as the age of the deceased – between 20 and 57 years old – and the cause of death: wounds caused by a knife. , In most cases.
The article of Giron points out, citing a “preliminary statistical report”, that in 2022 the Provincial Legal Medicine Service recorded seven femicides; in 2021, four; and in 2020, three, “whose basic causes of death were strangulation, burns from flames and assault with a blunt object.”
So far this year, 75 women have been victims of sexist violence on the Island, according to the registry of 14 intervene –compared with the list of independent platforms–. Of them, eight are from the province of Matanzas. These are Yainalis Pérez, Mercedes Vasallo, Anay Pérez, Yunisleve Fernández, Adela Verdecia, Ruselay Castillo, Osladys Núñez and Olaida Casanova, none of whose deaths were reported by the official press at the time.
Everything indicates, the media acknowledges, that “in the last year cases of violence against women have increased or, at least, have become more visible.” However, and although he admits that there are “cringe-inducing publications” on the internet, Giron It does not attribute the visibility of the situation to the press and independent observatories, but to the official “women’s support networks.”
“In the Penal Code there is no article or criminal type that defines the exercise of violence against women”
“In the Penal Code there is no article or criminal type that defines the exercise of violence against women,” admitted, without ambiguity, provincial prosecutor María Elena Govín, of the Department of Criminal Procedures. The absence of a legal tool against sexist violence, denounced on numerous occasions by Cuban feminists, has found a deaf ear in the Government, which is why Govín admits that it is “a debt” of the authorities to Cuban women.
Yuleikis Hernández, Govín’s colleague in the provincial Prosecutor’s Office, was quick to qualify the prosecutor’s observations to Giron: “We cannot talk about an excessive increase, at least in Matanzas,” he assured, despite the fact that both official and independent figures refute it.
On the contrary, Hernández affirms that in “previous periods” the situation has been more serious and, although he did not give other details, he denounced the existence of a “sexist, possessive pattern” that is repeated on the Island, in addition to “threats.” and “injuries” that authorities must frequently deal with. Other women, he lamented, “do not report or seek help,” but rather “protect the aggressor and justify him.”
The newspaper cites the testimony of a doctor from Matanzas who asked not to reveal her name, the victim of an attempted attack by her partner on June 4, 2022. The man, also a doctor, who arrived drunk at 5:30 in the morning at his house – the upper floor of his office – he slapped her several times and broke her glasses.
“I don’t know where I got the strength from and I managed to get him off of me. With one push he fell sitting on the couch and I was able to leave my house. Luckily, the door or the gate was not closed, because when we struggled he told me that he had come to kill me. I ran out with only a sweater, without adjusters, in a very short short and without glasses, I am nearsighted,” the woman said.
Very serious cases of sexist violence have been recorded in the province. Although not all of them died, there has been at least one “kidnapping” of a pregnant woman
The intervention of a neighbor, who hid her in his house, managed to prevent the worst. But her partner destroyed all her belongings, burned her clothes and started a fire to which the firefighters had to go. Giron It does not explain how the story ended or if the aggressor was legally prosecuted, but instead focuses on highlighting who should be asked for help in these cases: the official Federation of Cuban Women and its Violence Council.
Niurka La Osa Roldán, an official in Matanzas for this organization, also acknowledged that very serious cases of sexist violence have been recorded in the province. Although not all of them died, there has been at least one “kidnapping” of a pregnant woman, whose mother asked the Police for help.
The death of Olaida Casanova, a resident of Cárdenas, was the most recent feminicide recorded in Matanzas by independent platforms. The woman was murdered by her partner on September 21. That same month, Osladys Núñez, 43, was murdered, about whom the observatories were unable to gather more information.
Ruselay Castillo, 31 years old and resident of the central Matanzas town of Humberto Álvarez, was murdered by her partner. Castillo, a housewife and native of the town of Santa Marta, was the mother of two teenagers. For her part, the first of the eight women murdered this year in Matanzas, Yailanis Pérez, was 36 years old and she died at the end of January, after being reported missing for several days.
The article published this Saturday by Giron constitutes an exception. Despite multiple claims, Cuban authorities continue to keep secret the official figures of deaths due to sexist violence on the Island.
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