BTN News: Cuba’s Council of Ministers has approved a new system to track and manage gender-based violence. Official media reported this on Monday. The new system, introduced by Attorney General Yamila Peña Ojeda, will involve a team of 25 experts. These experts will come from the Ministry of the Interior and the Supreme People’s Court. Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, provided this information.
The official media did not specify if the data collected will be public. Granma mentioned that it will be an “administrative register.” This register is meant for managing criminal processes. In Cuba, femicide is not classified as a specific crime. Official press rarely reports on gender-based murders. Terms like “femicide” or “gender-based crime” are not used in official reports.
Independent feminist groups like Yo Sí Te Creo and Alas Tensas have been tracking these incidents. They have kept a real-time register of gender-based violence in recent years. These groups reported 28 confirmed femicides in the first half of this year. This is a 43% decrease compared to the same period last year. However, this decrease is mainly due to the difficulties in verifying information. According to Alas Tensas, the challenges are related to fear of reporting and the anonymity of many activists. Some activists operate from abroad due to political reasons.
The year 2023 saw the highest level of gender-based violence in Cuba since independent records began. There were 85 fatal victims, compared to 34 in 2022 and 36 in 2021. These numbers show a worsening trend despite the efforts of independent groups to raise awareness.
Last June, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) launched the Cuba Observatory on Gender Equality. This was supposed to include statistics on women victims of intentional homicide due to gender-based violence over the past year. However, the Observatory’s data stops at 2022. It only includes femicides with confirmed legal verdicts. The official platform has not updated the statistics it promised to release at the end of June this year.
According to 2023 official figures, provided by the Attorney General and summarized by Granma, 75% of gender-based violence cases occurred in the home. It is not clear if this includes all forms of violence towards women or just femicides. This trend seems to be continuing this year. The data also showed that 72% of the victims were between 25 and 59 years old. In 84% of the cases, the perpetrator was a partner or ex-partner. Additionally, 31% of the aggressors had a history of violent offenses.
This new national system aims to create a structured way to address and track gender-based violence in Cuba. While this is a positive step, the system’s success will depend on its transparency. It will also depend on how well authorities can act on the data collected. The success of independent feminist platforms in documenting these crimes shows the need for comprehensive and public information. This is crucial to effectively combat gender-based violence.
