Every four and a half years the Cuban State undergoes an evaluation by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). On October 18 this assessment will be conducted again, in Geneva, Switzerland. Activists who have participated in the current process with independent reports and have spoken with DIARIO DE CUBA consider it an opportunity to expose the reality women face on the island, and the State's deficiencies, to question official propaganda, and to spotlight the work carried out by independent civil society, with VAW observatories at the forefront.
In the words of Yanelis Núñez Leyva, with the Gender Observatory of the feminist magazine Alas Tensas (OGAT), "if we are to believe what the regime puts in its public report before the CEDAW, according to its analyses, according to the information they have been able to gather from all its institutions, the situation in Cuba with the issue of the fight against gender violence is better than ever, but this is mainly due to the work of the independent observatories, which have documented more than 200 cases from 2019 to date."
According to the activist based in Madrid, in many of these cases the flaws in the system of Cuban institutions that have as their social purpose the fight against gender violence, or the protection of women's lives, are revealed.
"There is a lack of Police training, and we see this reflected in the murder of the teenager Leydi Bacallao at a police station in Camalote, as well as in other cases where the victims have spoken out, or their relatives have, through social media, but neither the Prosecutor's Office or the Police have provided them with the responses they need. It is not only a question of issuing a restraining order, but also following up, establishing mechanisms so that the protection is really effective," she explains.
The official government report mentions the participation of civil society organizations in the development of public policies in recent years as an achievement, but Núñez Leyva considers this one of the "regime's lies."
"When civil society, the authentic one, not the circus they have invented, activists and organizations came together in 2019 and 2023 to request a comprehensive law against gender violence, the regime did not even include it on the legislative schedule," she points out.
"They talk about there being no discrimination on political grounds, but there are more than a thousand people imprisoned and, of them, almost a hundred are women. We continually see political persecution in the interrogations they conduct, in the threats levelled at family members, the activists themselves, journalists, and even in forced evictions," adds Núñez Leyva
She also laments that there are no shelters in Cuba, or even a specific helpline. There are also no mechanisms for engaging and working with the assailants.
"It is not only with women, but also with families, and communities; it is about prevention work that the regime does not do, even if it touts in its propaganda the thousand actions carried out by the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) focused on prevention," he says.
According to the activist, the Cuban Government heads into at the CEDAW evaluation with "many lies," but also with a society more aware of the issue of gender violence, "one which knows that it is important to call femicides what they are, and that prevention is important."
"The regime has many shortcomings in terms of the comprehensive work that the institutions must do, because independent civil society is not allowed to work in the communities," he notes.
In the activist's view, the CEDAW is another important international forum where the Cuban State can be exposed.
"It allows us to tell a different story than the official one about what is happening in the country, in the face of the regime's misinformation, the manipulation of information, the opacity of statistics, and the political persecution suffered by activists, and not only those related to the fight against gender violence."
Even though the regime usually ends processes of this type by evading the recommendations and, in many cases, branding them as interventionist, and rejecting them, the activists believe that the exposure of these State failures is crucial, as is telling a story that belies its propagandistic discourse.
"We hope that the participation of Cuban independent activism will become an example. It is important to play along the same lines as the regime, to make this participation public, to place it in civil society's consciousness, urge its members to be present in future forums, and expand on the information that we have systematized. It is in this type of space where we can bring it to light. It resonates. it's a way to put pressure on the regime. We change the story, we tell another one, we pressure states to point their fingers at the Cuban regime, so that the complicity between governments is exposed, and we can continue to deconstruct the regime's image in spheres where it has a lot of support," he says.
"Pointing at it, pressuring it, so that the regime really takes action against gender violence. Also, for the release of the political prisoners, and an end to the persecution of civil society on the island," he added.
Defining political violence based on gender
Sara Cuba, with the Cuban Alliance for Inclusion (ACI), another of the organizations that presented a report to the CEDAW, considers the process "an open path to strengthen women's activism in civil society by providing a solid base of evidence and supporting specific demands."
In the case of the ICA, Cuba explains, they have sought to "document and analyze the specific forms of political violence suffered by women activists, artists and independent journalists who advocate for the respect and defense of human rights."
"There are documented forms of violence that include harassment, physical assault, threats, intimidation, and exclusion from political participation. Political violence against women is downplayed or ignored in political discourse, which gives way to its perpetuation and a lack of protection for victims of this type of violence," she adds.
According to the activist, the ICA report also focuses on linking political violence and its concealment to human rights violations, demonstrating how it affects women’s non-participation in the country's political and public life".
We intend to observe or evaluate the extent to which the Government complies with the obligations established by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in relation to the prevention and sanctioning of political violence against women in Cuba. We hope that the CEDAW will assess the content of the report, determine the magnitude and seriousness of female political violence in the specific context of Cuba, and be able to make specific recommendations,” she says.
According to Laritza Diversent, director of the Cubalex legal information center, women's equality issues have always been used by the Cuban state "to depict itself as a progressive government and too many lies have been told" about it.
"There is a whole mirror that has nothing to do with the reality that women experience on the island, and I think the periodicity of this examination is important because it allows civil society to bring up different problems that women have. They may not be the same problems they had in 1980, or 1990, in the 2000s, or even after the pandemic, but it is important to raise awareness of the situation of women on the island, and this is an opportunity to do so," she says.
Diversent expects the CEDAW's concerns to be more in tune with today's reality.
"For several years now, the Committee has been concerned, for example, about the application of 'pre-criminal dangerousness' and sex work in Cuba, re-education, and everything that incarceration entails.
Recommendations to the State demanded the elimination of this precept from the Criminal Code. The issue of marriage in adolescence was raised in 2013. The State has now made an amendment to the Family Code and set the same age for marriage for both genders (previously, for females it was 14 and for males it was 16): 18 years of age, to conform to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. But there is still much to be done regarding the issue of consent and sexual relations that are not expressly prohibited between minors and adults," he says.
Diversent recalls that the revision of the Family Code and criminal regulations eliminated the term "pre-criminal dangerousness," but criticizes that "it remains, in essence, through warning acts, administrative fines that the regime has used to harass."
Like Sara Cuba, she regrets the absence of previous recommendations on the issue of political violence against women, harassment, repression and violence against activists.
"The role of the FMC has also been a cause for concern. The CEDAW has made recommendations, but the essence of the former organization, controlled by the regime, prevents it from doing effective work for the empowerment of women and the elimination of all discrimination," Diversent adds.
The Cuban lawyer indicates that the Cuban Government received several recommendations in 2013, when it underwent the last examination, and that it has reacted to them late. "Cuba should have submitted its national report in 2017, but it did not submit it until the end of 2022, almost ten years after the last assessment," he says.
On October 18, the interactive dialogue between the State and the coalition of participants is scheduled. There will also be a meeting between the Committee and the organizations of the countries to be examined.
"We have the opportunity for the Committee's experts to hear us directly, although we will also have to share space with government organizations," says Diversent.
The experience of the activist, who participated in the evaluation of Havana in 2013, is that these organizations, which the regime insists on presenting as independent, but actually controls, "can get very aggressive."
Diversent points out that there are pro-regime publications that have been attacking Cubalex for participating in this forum.