ECLAC gives, for the first time, figures of femicides on the Island, but they are much lower than those reported by independent sources
14ymedio, Havana, 22 November 2024 — The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has included Cuba for the first time in its annual report on femicides in the region. The study, published Friday, indicates that the island registered 60 murders due to male violence in 2023.
The figure, however, from “records provided by the official agencies of each country,” is much lower than those compiled by NGOs and independent media. This newspaper, in particular, reported 87 femicides in 2023, 45% more than the official figure. In any case, they are a novelty, since the Cuban government had not provided information on femicides to ECLAC until now.
With the 60 gender-based, man-committed murders reported by ECLAC, the rate of femicides per 100,000 women is 1.1 (taking into account that the commission uses 6,000,000 women to calculate the number of femicides). However, if we take the 87 verified by 14ymedio and a population, more adjusted to the latest official figures, of 5,000,000 women, the rate rises to 1.74. This is the third highest rate in the region, behind Honduras (7.2) and the Dominican Republic (2.4).
This newspaper, in particular, reported 87 femicides in 2023, 45% more than the official figure.
At a regional level, ECLAC reported that at least 3,897 women were victims of femicide in the region last year, which represents “at least 11 violent gender-related deaths every day.”
The commission explains that the majority of these deaths occurred in the context of current or terminated relationships. Out of 10 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean that provided information on the existing links between the victim and the perpetrator, it was more than 60% in eight of those countries. In the case of the island, it reported 83.3%.
Most of the victims (56.4%, that is, 404 cases) were between 30 and 59 years old; 20.3% (145 cases) were young women between 15 and 29 years old, while 3.4% (24 cases) were girls 14 years old or younger.
Likewise, seven countries – including Cuba, according to the report – also provided information on indirect victims, “defined as sons, daughters and other dependents of women victims of femicide.” A total of 488 were recorded; of these, 38 are from the island, below Argentina (205), the Dominican Republic (93), Paraguay (71) and Chile (45).
In the report, ECLAC offers comparative data for each country since 2015, except for Cuba because there are no recorded data since officially femicide did not exist in Cuba. In fact, to date, it has not been classified as a specific crime.
There are “low percentages of victims of this type of violations of rights who resort to public authorities, as well as of those who lodge complaints to have access to justice.”
In this regard, ECLAC showed that there are eight countries, besides the island, that lack systems to measure crimes of gender violence. The organization pointed out that these countries “are working on the coordination and capacity building necessary to implement integrated or single systems of administrative records for cases of gender-based violence.”
Although the commission sees “progress” in public policies to “confront the global pandemic of violence against women and girls,” it points out that “there is a large gap between the severity and persistence of the problem and the quality of the public response. It adds that there are “low percentages of victims of this type of rights violations who turn to public authorities, as well as of those who lodge complaints to access justice.”In this area, there is no data on the island.
The report calls on the governments of the region to “ double their efforts to improve recording and information systems, to increase budgetary resources to design public policies that respond comprehensively to victims and survivors, and to invest in the effective prevention of gender-based violence”.
So far in 2024, 45 femicides have been recorded in Cuba, according to the count carried out by this media. Of these, at least 37 were committed by a partner or ex-partner. Last October was the month with the highest number of cases, with seven, surpassing the number in January, when six cases were verified.
Translated by LAR
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