14ymedio/EFE, Havana, July 6, 2023 — The independent feminist platform Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba (YSTCC)[I Do Believe You] documented this Wednesday a new sexist murder that occurred in the town of Chambas, in the province of Ciego de Ávila. With the death of Saray Moya Moreno, this Monday, at the hands of her partner, the number of femicides registered on the Island so far this year rises to 48.
The activists sent their condolences “to the affected families and especially to the sons and daughters” of the murdered woman. “In the faces of delinquency and impunity, we urge family members and children of legal age to pressure and demand justice from the corresponding institutions,” they stressed, in a message disseminated on social networks.
In addition, they ask for “citizen collaboration” to verify two other alleged femicides that occurred in the province of Santiago de Cuba. This group points out that since 2019, when it began to count sexist crimes on the Island, they have counted 166 that have been verified.
YSTCC and the Observatorio de Género de Alas Tensas (OGAT) [Tense Wings Gender Observatory] also confirmed on Wednesday another sexist crime, the twelfth recorded last June, the month with the most deaths of women at the hands of their partners or ex-partners so far this year.
According to the statements that her relatives offered to CubaNet, on June 19, the young Yunisleve Fernández reported at the Torrientes Police Station, in the Matancero municipality of Jagüey Grande, that her aggressor had brutally beaten her. Upon learning that Fernández had gone to the authorities, her ex-partner, who is not named by the media but apparently lived under the same roof as the victim, threatened to kill her. Four days later, on June 23, Fernández was murdered with a knife in front of her four-year-old son and her mother.
The Island exceeds, in just six months, the total number of feminicides verified throughout 2022 (36), according to the records of the activists and collated by 14ymedio, in the absence of official public statistics.
These groups insist on their calls to the authorities of the Island to declare a “state of emergency for gender violence,” and regret that the Cuban Government has not taken measures in this regard.
The work of independent feminists and their dissemination in the unofficial media has contributed to putting the focus on the cases of sexist murders and disappearances of Cubans in recent years.
YSTCC has highlighted that “nothing would have been possible without all those people who share content, verify data and are support networks for survivors.”
These groups, which have social networks and victim help phones, advocate for a comprehensive law against sexist violence and the implementation of protocols to prevent these events, as well as the creation of shelters and rescue systems for women in danger and their children.
Last April, President Miguel Díaz-Canel assured that there would be “zero tolerance” for this type of violence. In June, the official Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) created the Cuba Observatory on Gender Equality, which includes statistics on “women who have been victims of intentional homicide as a result of gender violence in the last 12 months.”
The Supreme People’s Court of the Island reported in mid-May that in 2022 there were 18 convictions for sexist murders, all with penalties of more than 25 years in prison. It did not give more details, and it is still not known to which cases those sentences correspond.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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