Specialists warn that the 173 cases of sexual violence tried in 2025 are highly unrepresentative of reality
14ymedio, Dariel Pradas (IPS Cuba), Havana, September 7, 2026 / Cuban courts closed 49 cases last year of women over 15 years of age “killed for reasons of gender,” representing a rate of 1.19 per 100,000 women and a decrease compared to the 76 trials in 2024 and the 60 in 2023, the island’s government reported in August.
“That statistic doesn’t give me any real triumphs in terms of a decrease in the problem, but rather a reflection of the delay in judicial processes. These are not the deaths of 2025,” Arlín Pérez, a law professor at the University of Havana with more than 30 years of experience in the courts, told IPS.
According to Pérez, the cases considered tried in 2025 are not about murders from that year, but mainly from 2023 and some from 2024.
“Given all the scarcities in Cuba, including the shortage of personnel in the police, the prosecutor’s office and the courts, as well as power cuts or the fact that people work four days a week (a cost-saving measure following the oil blockade in January), a criminal proceeding such as a woman’s death, which could technically take six months according to the Criminal Procedure Law, is taking two or three years,” she explained.
The figure is so unreal that if conditions in the legal apparatus were suddenly to improve in 2027 and the backlog from previous years were cleared, that year would show a record number of femicides, she added
The figure is so unreal that if conditions in the legal apparatus were suddenly to improve in 2027 and the backlog from previous years were cleared, that year would show a record number of femicides, she added.
Article 345.2 of the new Penal Code, approved in 2022, stipulates that a person who “causes the death of a woman as a result of gender-based violence” incurs sentences of 20 to 40 years’ imprisonment, life imprisonment, or death – the same sentences that would apply if it were another type of murder.
According to Pérez, Cuba’s body of law does not literally use the term femicide – although she said she would prefer it – to refer to these cases, as happens in other Latin American countries, which have incorporated it as a crime in their penal codes or specific laws.
In Cuba, the reason for distinguishing gender-based motives in a murder is not because it constitutes an aggravating factor in sentencing – since such murders already carry the maximum penalties – but rather a matter of legal technique and, above all, of statistics.
The Cuban Observatory on Gender Equality (Ocig), a platform linked to the National Statistics and Information Office (Onei) and the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), updated some femicide indicators for the island on August 18.
Of those 49 women murdered, whose cases were tried in 2025, 47% died at the hands of an ex-partner, nearly 90% died in their own home, and 75.5% had no employment ties. Most were white and between 20 and 44 years old (38 cases).
The Ocig, which was created in 2023 and has since updated a set of gender-related indicators once a year, also recorded 33 cases in urban areas and 16 in rural areas, where the femicide rate reached 1.65 per 100,000 women.
While the declining figure for tried femicides reported by the Ocig is not, for now, a real gauge of violence against women, Pérez likewise does not venture to claim that the trend has been increasing.
For its part, the Alas Tensas Gender Observatory (Ogat) is another organization that has kept its own count since 2019, compiled from citizen reports, mainly through social media.
The Ogat has reported 47 women murdered so far this year, as of August 24, and has kept a case-by-case count of 350 femicide victims from 2019 through the first half of 2026.
“Although the Alas Tensas Observatory is politically committed (against the Cuban government), that doesn’t change the fact that it often posts on social media about the existence of real cases”
“Although the Alas Tensas Observatory is politically committed (against the Cuban government), that doesn’t change the fact that it often posts on social media about the existence of real cases,” said Pérez. For the jurist, the most reliable data comes from the courts, but it is not enough.
For example, the so-called Interoperable Registry – which is not public and to which only the Prosecutor’s Office, the police, criminal investigators and, soon, the courts have access – provides “very clear information about what happens in cases from the moment of the official complaint.”
In fact, several femicide cases have not been tried because the perpetrator later committed suicide, and this is data that is not processed nor reflected in the Ocig statistics, she said.
Another important figure released by the Ocig was that, in 2025, Cuban courts processed 173 cases of sexual violence against women aged 15 and older, of which 90 corresponded to the crime of sexual assault and 83 to other types of sexual violence.
Women aged 20 to 44 accounted for the majority of victims (73, or 5.33 per 100,000 women), but adolescents aged 15 to 17 were the most affected (49 victims, 31.52 per 100,000 women).
“Sexual assault came to include all attacks of greater severity against a person’s freedom and bodily integrity,” the jurist said.
Under Article 395 of the Penal Code, sexual assault is punishable by seven to 15 years’ imprisonment for anyone who, “using force, violence or intimidation, has carnal access to another person,” by whatever means or methods.
The sentence is 8 to 20 years if, for example, the crime results from gender-based or domestic violence, or from discriminatory motives.
Of lesser severity are other forms of sexual violence such as “sexual abuse” – unlike the previous crime, it does not involve “carnal access” – or “harassment and sexual outrage,” which includes forms of harassment carried out directly or through any means of communication. In both cases, the penalties are fines or prison terms of six months to two years.
The 173 cases of sexual violence tried in 2025 represent a sharp decrease compared to the 230 cases in 2024 and the 378 in 2023, to the point that the rate of such cases brought to justice fell from 8.62 per 100,000 women in 2023 to 4.19 in 2025. Of that total of 781 cases, 419 (53.6%) correspond to sexual assaults and 362 (46.4%) to other types of sexual violence.
“These figures are very unrepresentative of reality. A woman endures so much harassment every day for these numbers to mean anything. In any case, they speak to how poorly Cuban justice functions for these cases of sexual violence,” said Claris, a student at the Technological University of Havana who preferred to withhold her last name.
Many Cuban specialists and activists agree that the available statistics offer only a partial view of a problem that, according to independent feminist groups, faces significant underreporting.
The Ocig’s contribution is further limited by the fact that it provides data only on tried cases, rendering invisible sexual violence against girls under 15 and against boys.
“With sexual violence there is always a very large degree of underreporting. First, because of the victim’s silence, and second, because sexual violence crimes, by law, require that a complaint be filed: they require an official report from the victim or, if she is a minor, from her parents. These are crimes, as is classically said, crimes of solitude,” Pérez noted.
“With sexual violence there is always a very large degree of underreporting. First, because of the victim’s silence, and second, because sexual violence crimes, by law, require that a complaint be filed: they require an official report”
Despite legislative progress, studies confirm the persistence on a global scale of challenges for victims of sexual violence in accessing justice, such as shame and fear of reprisals; revictimization and a lack of awareness among judicial officials; a lack of support networks; and socioeconomic inequalities.
More than 12% of women aged 15 to 49 worldwide have been victims of physical or sexual violence by a partner or ex-partner in the past year, according to the Gender Snapshot (2025) from UN Women.
When it comes to reporting cases of sexual violence, there is also the length of time it takes for a criminal action to lapse, which in Cuba can range from 3 to 25 years depending on the sentence associated with a given crime, although femicide cases should not have a statute of limitations, since murder carries the maximum penalty.
To support victims through the process, in November 2025 Cuba inaugurated the Specialized Office for the Comprehensive Care of Victims of Gender-Based Violence, an initiative of the National Organization of Collective Law Firms, which already has 40 locations across the island.
Attorney Ana Isabel Zamora, who belongs to one of the offices in Havana, explained to IPS that the initiative’s role is to offer legal advice, procedural representation and support to victims of gender-based violence. But in its first few months, her office has handled only about 20 cases.
Zamora acknowledged that “it still isn’t as visible as we would like. Out of fear, shame, or stereotypes, victims fail to reach out to these places where they could be helped.”
Translated by GH.
Editor’s note: This text was published by IPS Cuba
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