He does not hit her, he does not shout at her, but he does not listen to her or respond to her either, he ignores her in all plans and decisions related to the house; he barely looks at her, as if she were just another vase. For him, it’s as if she were invisible, she does not exist.

It's not an isolated case, according to reports from Cuba to the Committee of Experts of the United Nations Convention for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, psychological violence predominates and in about half of the cases (50.7%), the aggressor has been the partner himself, with the home being the most frequent space for this behavior.

However, it’s impossible to determine with certainty how often this happens in Cuba and in the world, because the majority of victims of this type of violence remain silent.

What can be confirmed, and is reflected in the most recent report from the Gender Equality Observatory of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), is that 11 femicides occur every day in this region of the planet.

Last year alone, 3,897 women were murdered in 27 countries in the region.

More than 75% of these victims were between 15-59 years old, 3% were girls under 15 years old and 10 out of 100 were 60 years old or older.

Cuban women and gender violence

According to figures reported by Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh, in an interview given to the Granma newspaper last February, in Cuba, nearly 5,600 families live in situations of violence, and more than 16,000 women and girls live in them.

To face this situation, which is not foreign to any nation and whose statistics barely reflect a part of the reality because victims themselves decide not to report, Cuba has had since 2021 a Comprehensive Strategy for the Prevention and Attention to Gender-Based Violence and in the Family Scenario, focused on the prevention, attention, protection and recovery from these acts of violence.

In this direction, education and awareness about stereotypes play a decisive role, from a local-community level.

The most recent considerations on Cuban action on this issue were summarized last month in the presentation, by Chapman Waugh herself, of the IX Report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

This text, multiplied by the Cuban media, recalls that since 2019, in Cuba there has been a broad process of strengthening the legal and institutional framework, which has incorporated a deep, intersectoral, intersectional and transversal gender perspective or approach.

The Family Code adopted in 2022 includes a broad catalogue of rights and guarantees for gender equality, which is added to the National Program for the Advancement of Women (PAM), approved by Presidential Decree in 2021.

“The Program constitutes the Cuban State's agenda for the development of policies in favor of women, while continuing the progress achieved since the Triumph of the Revolution. It consists of an action plan with 7 areas of special attention and 46 measures,” the aforementioned report states.

Three years after the implementation of said Program, some of its relevant results are:

-Public policies approved to promote the incorporation of women into employment and the expansion of support services. This has led to the creation of 246 children's houses in workplaces, the extension of maternity leave and social protection up to 15 months after the birth of a daughter or son, a right extended to fathers and grandparents

-The social aid system has protected more than 3,740 mothers of children with disabilities

-The female economic activity rate reached 52.7% and a low unemployment rate has been maintained, with just 2%

-20% of licenses of small trucks, small and medium-sized enterprise are women. In this area, six decree laws were approved that include special protection for women in the non-state sector

-In 2024, women represent 55.7% of deputies in the National Assembly, which places us as the second country in the world, and the first among unicameral parliaments

-As a novel and essential instrument in the implementation of the National Program for the Advancement of Women, an Observatory on Gender Equality was created, for the collection and dissemination of data on this topic.

The 2022 Penal Code criminalizes “the death of a woman for reasons of gender.” All forms of violence are also included in said Code: family, psychological, physical, sexual, moral, economic or patrimonial, whether by action or omission, direct or indirect and in any area of society or the family .

In June 2023, the Ombudsman's Office was created, with the mission of protecting, guaranteeing and restoring the rights of people in vulnerable situations and by September 2024 they had processed 1,001 cases, of which 132 were about violence and discrimination.

On the basis of our commitments, including the Convention and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the First Vice Minister recalled, "the Cuban State has the firm intention of continuing to take steps forward in terms of gender equality and the empowerment of women," whom she described as "victors of impossible tasks."

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSi Translation Staff