Stabbed and Mutilated, the Latest Femicide in Cuba

Meanwhile, the Network denounces in a statement, “the Cuban Parliament approved a new Criminal Code that includes increased penalties for dissidence, but does not explicitly condemn femicide.” (14ymedio/Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 17 May 2022 — The latest confirmed femicide on the Island, the eleventh so far in 2022, shows unusual cruelty. As denounced on Monday by the Red Femenina de Cuba [Cuban Women’s Network] the young Yusleidy Aguilera Fernández, 21 years old and with two small children, was viciously stabbed to death and had her breasts cut off. The information was confirmed by the feminist magazine Alas Tensas, which specified that the children are 2 and 5 years old.

According to the independent platform, the events occurred in the Vuelta del Caño district, Granma province, and the murderer, originally from Havana, was arrested in Manzanillo.

Meanwhile, the Network denounces in a statement, “the Cuban Parliament approved a new Criminal Code that includes increased penalties for dissidence, but does not explicitly condemn femicide, and maintains the death penalty.”

On April 30, Odalys Lavin, 55, was murdered at the hands of her husband, who committed suicide after the crime. On the 12th of that month, Yamilka Silva died in Báguanos, Holguín, murdered by the father of her daughter, in her parents’ own home, where she had taken refuge, according to the observatories of the magazine Alas Tensas and #YoSiTeCreo in Cuba.

Before her, the femicides of Eriday Soto Martínez, 26, and her five-month-old son were reported, which occurred on March 24, in the Argentina Sur neighborhood, in Jobabo, Las Tunas.

Up to then, Alas Tensas had verified six femicides in Cuba, those of Mailén Guerra García, Mislaidis Carmenate, Darlín García, Lisbet Machado and a 21-year-old girl in San Luis, Santiago de Cuba, and another of a 24-year-old from Cárdenas, Matanzas, whose names were not provided.

In 2021, the same organization recorded 36 murders of women, of which 29 were committed by partners or former partners. In 2020, the figure was 32, although it is impossible to verify if the number has increased or the problem is becoming more visible since there are independent organizations that keep the count, since the Government does not have a public record of this type of murder.

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