The government has still not provided the number of femicides per year, let alone updated it.
14ymedio, Madrid, 2 August 2024 — Cuban authorities continue to conscientiously guard the data on women killed by male violence, but Thursday’s publication of the number of femicides prosecuted in 2023 shows an alarming figure. In a single year, the increase was more than 500%, going from 18 prosecutions for this crime in 2022 to 110 in 2023.
Cuba’s Observatory on Gender Equality, part of the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei) published on Thursday what was its first update since the body was launched in June 2023, whose website includes the number of cases tried for femicides.
The data is broken down into two different sections; on the one hand that of “women aged 15 and over who were victims of gender-related murder at the hands of their partners, ex-partners or other persons”, which amounted to 60 in 2023, and on the other hand, that of “women aged 15 and over who were victims of murder by their partner or ex-partner known in judicial proceedings”. Unified, in accordance with international standards, the figure was 110, bearing in mind that the number refers to cases that were prosecuted during that year and not necessarily to crimes committed in the same period.
The combined rate is 2.16 per 100,000 women. The figure places Cuba as the sixth country in the region.
The combined rate is 2.16 per 100,000 women. The figure places Cuba as the sixth country in the region according to the records of femicides of the Gender Equality Observatory of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) for 2022, the latest year available. However, the organisation itself warns about caution when comparing data between countries, as there is no unified regional methodology when it comes to counting.
In a more detailed analysis, in the case of “victims of gender-related murder”, the figure for Havana (12) stands out, although due to its larger population, the rate is much lower (1.42) than that of Camagüey (10 cases and a rate of 3.37) and Matanzas (8 cases and a rate of 2.87). There is also an imbalance between crimes committed in urban (37) and rural (23) areas, although the rate also changes, being 1.09 and 2.33, respectively.
As for the profile of the victims, by age, the 20 to 44 age group stands out (39 victims), followed by the 45 to 59 age group (14); while by race, the majority were w
