The visible marks on her body were only a small glimpse of what was really happening. Six years of relationship. "At the beginning he wasn't aggressive, but then the jealousy, the prohibitions, the beatings...".
She says that he did not let her work, that he took her to another province against her will, that he managed every penny, and that the only way she went out was in his presence.
She wanted to escape, "but I had nowhere to go with my son". Facing her past, she recognizes the cycle of violence she was part of. And she sought help in time. She feared death. She could well have been one of the 60 women who in 2023 - according to data from the Observatory of Gender in Cuba - were murdered for gender reasons, at the hands of their partners, ex-partners or other people.
***
Harassment, revictimization, sexism, gender violence... The names of the victims vary, the stories have a multiplicity of manifestations. However, although there is a legal body that protects Cuban women, many expressions of this scourge are hidden behind the door, are normalized in society, and carry profound consequences, the most bloody: femicides.
The sociologist and specialist in gender issues, Clotilde Proveyer Cervantes, in countless interviews has stressed that gender violence is not a sum of isolated facts, but is based on stereotypes, naturalized myths and sexist behaviors perpetuated by the patriarchal system, which must be confronted.
According to UN Women, this evil is rooted in gender inequality and abuse of power. Although it mainly affects women, men who break with hegemonic masculinities and people who transgress pre-established gender identities are also violated.
For the psychologist and specialist of the Research and Teaching Department, Carla Padrón Suárez, and the head of the Legal Advisory Department, Fátima Abdulá Ruiz, both from the National Center for Sexual Education (Cenesex), the phenomenon is so widespread in society that most women have been in a situation of violence, and although physical aggression is the most evident, there are other imperceptible ways of mistreatment that lacerate the soul.
"Now we are raising our voices, but it has been a silenced problem, which generates a lot of shame. However, it is now accepted that gender-based violence is a social phenomenon that needs to be prevented and confronted."
"If action is not taken quickly, it can result in very serious damage to the woman and her family, because the aggressor first isolates her from the nucleus that protects her. Then, many outsiders blame her, because they do not understand that the victim is deprived of her personal resources and feels incapable of leaving the circle," adds Carla Padrón.
UN Women statistics corroborate this: 40% of women who suffer violence seek some kind of help, and less than 10% of those who seek such assistance report it to the police.
It should be pointed out that in many cases in which the abused woman goes to the responsible legal institution, she is not attended to correctly or the process is made difficult. In this regard, Fátima Abdulá argues that this is made more complex because these crimes are committed alone, and many perpetrators are people integrated into society.
That is why it is essential that there is no negativity in the service: most likely the victim will withdraw the complaint the next day; and even if she does not do so, and wins from the criminal point of view, socially she continues to experience the consequences, emphasizes Fatima Abdulá.
Hence the importance of devising a support network in these cases, so that feelings of shame are reduced and the victim can be emotionally rehabilitated, she adds.
IN CUBA: PROGRESS OR REGRESSION?
It was 2023. Sonia described going to work as an ordeal. It was the consecutive calls from her boss, the degrading insults, the orders to stay after working hours... All this harassment caused damage to her mental health.
At that time, the island had not implemented the Protocol for dealing with situations of discrimination, violence and harassment in the workplace, and the decision taken by the medical committee, after she went to the House of Guidance for Women and Families in Santiago de Cuba, was to retire her. However, the evil had already been done, and the man continued to harass other women.
***
It is not true that women and girls enjoy equal opportunities and that the battle to confront gender-based violence has been won. There are still battles to be fought.
In an interview with Granma, Teresa Amarelle Boué, member of the Political Bureau of the Party and secretary general of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), stated that of the 9,579 families living in a situation of violence, more than 16,000 women and girls are affected.
Eradicating any vestige of inequality is a goal for the Cuban government and, although with slow steps, progress is evident:
"From the legislative advances that support the country's projections and policies, such as the approval of the Family Code, the Penal Code, the Law of Penal Execution, the Law of Penal Process and the Code of Processes, in addition to the Comprehensive Strategy for the Prevention and Attention to Gender Violence and in the Family Scenario; to the actions and measures contemplated in the National Program for the Advancement of Women, which transversalizes all norms with its gender approach", points out Yaneidys Pérez Cruz, ideologist of the FMC.
In this sense, 896 Gender Committees were created and there are also seven bodies, agencies and institutions that implement the Strategy with the creation of action protocols to provide fair treatment.
Likewise, it is working together with the Attorney General's Office in the implementation of an Interoperable Administrative Registry for follow-up, monitoring and real-time information on femicides, disaggregated by indicators, she emphasizes.
For Yamila González Ferrer, vice-president of the Union of Jurists of Cuba and member of the Committee of Experts of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the fact that Cuba has a protective legal framework on gender-based violence means that the State has placed zero tolerance to the scourge at the center of its priorities.
In her dialogue with Granma, the honesty of someone who knows that, although there are positive results, as long as there is a woman, a girl or a child in a situation of violence and the most effective attention is not given, "we cannot feel satisfied".
IT IS ONLY A BEGINNING
"There are many gender stereotypes that generate prejudices, which are installed in the subjectivity of our professionals, and also in the population itself, and this is an element on which we need to work very hard," says Yamila González.
She is well aware that the greatest weakness lies in the community, and that one of the challenges is to go there: "We are working on integrated and comprehensive services so that there really is an articulation of all the actors".
Because, according to legal advisor Fátima Abdulá, many of these institutions provide a fragmented response: "Some of the cases that enter through Public Health or the Prosecutor's Office are not followed up; other stories do not receive an immediate response and there are children involved who are secondary victims".
On this issue and all others that transgress human rights, public policies are not the final destination. It is necessary to impregnate society with a comprehensive sexual education, a legal culture, to understand what gender violence is and how it is affected by preset behaviors of what it is to be a man and a woman.
