Leidy Cod.
(Facebook)
Editor's Note:
Wendy Guerra is a Cuban-French writer and a contributor to CNN en Español.
Her articles have appeared in media around the world, such as El País, The New York Times, the Miami Herald, El Mundo and La Vanguardia.
Among her most outstanding literary works are "Ropa interior" (2007), "I was never a first lady" (2008), "Posing naked in Havana" (2010) and "Todos se van" (2014).
Her work has been published in 23 languages.
The comments expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author.
See more at cnne.com/opinion
(CNN Spanish) --
Revolutionary photogenics, the imaginary of the Cuban Revolution, consists of emphatically masculine ingredients, which standardize it as a canon.
A man on a war tank enters Havana triumphantly, surrounded by other men dressed in olive green.
Not a single woman accompanies them in those first snapshots.
Without the Cuban women it would have been impossible to climb to the Second Front, assault barracks, or simply rescue them after the yacht Granma disembarked.
Despite this, women here are not the protagonists.
They never were in the universe that saw us grow.
Did the heroes, martyrs and revolutionary symbols come out of nowhere?
Who were the wives, sisters, mothers, daughters, and grandmothers of the Cuban leaders who rose to power on January 1, 1959?
Why during the socialist stage did we not have a first lady in Cuba?
Where are the proposed candidates for the presidency of the Republic of Cuba?
Faced with the official macho panorama, many questions arise: are we not trustworthy? Do they consider us weak? What makes them recoil from us?
Our mothers could not prevent them from deciding on our instruction, education, indoctrination, that they separated us from any religion, vocation, and took away their capacity for self-determination.
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Many young people, being minors, without the consent of their mothers and fathers, were sent, through compulsory military service, to the wars in Angola and Ethiopia, to cite just two examples.
If a mother did not agree with any of these determinations, she could not leave the country with her children.
She needed authorization from both parents or she had to wait for an exit permit that was only granted when she reached the age of majority.
What I am telling here illustrates, in my personal way of seeing history, a form of contemporary slavery.
Fidel Castro speaks in 1965 at the farewell ceremony of the Centennial Youth Movement in Cuba.
(Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)
The murder of the young Leidy Bacallao, 17 years old, at the gates of the Camalote Police substation, a town in the Camagüey municipality of Nuevitas -500 km east of Havana-, is one of the clearest examples of the immobility and insensitivity of the Cuban authorities in the face of femicides.
According to independent journalists and activists with access to the complaint, at midnight on Saturday, February 4, the young woman was at a party, chatting with friends.
There, her sentimental ex-partner appeared, throwing threats at her that were rising in tone.
The man had complaints for previous assaults.
Leidy went to the nearest police station asking for help and the man, almost four decades older than her, followed her.
Machete in hand, Hidalgo entered the police station,
We have asked the president of the Cuban Women's Network, Elena Larrinaga, an activist for human rights and freedom in Cuba, who has lived in Madrid for decades, what makes the situation of violence against women in Cuba different from the rest of the world. world: “The problem exists just like in the rest of the countries of the world.
The enormous difference that I see is the institutional, personal, family and social protection that protects the victims in Spain, in the face of the impunity with which violence is exercised in Cuba in all spheres.
There the victims lack support and protection.”
Gender violence is an ABC of daily life in Cuba and a reflection of the hierarchical design structured by that society as a way of controlling its citizens, and in which, unfortunately, women, girls and boys, are its main victims.
Leidy Cod.
(Facebook)
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) revealed that, daily and on average, 12 women are victims of femicide in the region.
It is disconcerting to confirm that these statistics do not include data on Cuba.
Who controls these statistics?
The Cuban government has the power to control each of these reports sent to international organizations.
What are the internal organizations that can help us clarify this data?
One of these study centers should be the National Center for Sexual Education (Cenesex).
However, during various interviews with the Argentine press, its director, Mariela Castro Espín, insisted that in Cuba "we do not have femicides [...] because Cuba is not a violent country."
Paradoxically, Castro Espín requested last year that femicide be included in the newly imposed Penal Code.
Meanwhile, Teresa Amarelle Boué, general secretary of the organization that groups Cuban women over 14 years of age, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), told the plenary session that she was satisfied that gender is only considered an aggravating circumstance in the forced rule.
The only official figures available came to light in 2019, within the National Report on the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda. It was there that the Cuban government recognized, for the first time, the existence of femicides.
In 2016: 0.99 femicides per 100,000 Cuban adolescents and women aged 15 and over, although it only included couples and ex-partners.
Meanwhile, the National Survey of Gender Equality, applied in 2016 in all regions of the country, indicates that, in the 12 months prior to the inquiry, 26.7% of Cuban women suffered violence within their partner relationships and 39.6% throughout his life.
Given the lack of transparency of state organizations, important independent civil associations have been created, which, from persecution and clandestinity, are mobilized to try to clarify the situation regarding gender violence in Cuba.
To cite two examples: the Alliance for Inclusion (ACI) and the Cuban Women's Network (RFC).
The latter was in charge of preparing the Cuba Gender Violence 2020 Agenda.
The feminist association to accompany women in situations of gender violence YoSíTeCreoenCuba, for its part, assured that 11 women have been victims of femicides so far in 2023. In 2022, 33 femicides, two of them linked to the so-called vicarious violence or surrogate violence committed against their children;
and, since 2019, after the opening of its femicide observatory:
This collective of Cuban women insists that the number could be higher, their figures are based only on the cases that the feminist nucleus itself has managed to verify within a hostile context, facing risks inherent to accompanying these harassed women and constant surveillance. of the State.
The feminist magazine Alas Tensas insists on the need to create refuge spaces for women who have been violated.
The YoSiTeCreoEnCuba platform promotes the establishment of a Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence in Cuba, trying to achieve that, once and for all, the problem is addressed in a comprehensive manner.
The truth is that it is very difficult to convince a police officer of threats from a husband, a lover, a father, a friend, a colleague or a stranger.
This is the first thing a law enforcement officer in Cuba tells you when you try to report abuse: "It's your word against his."
Upon hearing this statement that stops any investigation, follow-up by the authorities, preventing and avoiding femicides throughout the island, the question is:
Who are the authorities referring to when they cite “him”, only the man in question, or the State as an abusive entity?
CubaGender violence
