Mariela Castro at the National Day Against Violence Against Women and Girls

December 4, 2019

In the midst of the National Day Against Violence Toward Women and Girls, the director of the National Center for Sex Education asserts that the problem of gender-based violence is very ancient:

"It is a problem of centuries, it is a problem of misogyny. That hatred toward women has been expressed from a place of power, of domination: 'I am your owner,' 'I decide about you'; it has been historical. There have been voices that have confronted, throughout history, the mistreatment of women, because there were times when women had the same possibilities as men, even to lead, to participate in politics, in public spaces, and later, with the crusades, for example, the Catholic religion influenced greatly the institutionalization from religion of a much more despised place for women, even their persecution and torture, catalogued as witches, nine centuries of persecution of women, it was a terrible thing," expressed Mariela Castro in a press conference.

All of that is still present in the entire world, there are countries where women are completely enslaved and suffer greatly. There is a Marxist thinker, of Cuban origin, Paul Lafarge, who already in the 19th Century spoke of marriage as the euphemism for violence against women, and he was one of those who denounced the mistreatment of women within marriage, so there have always been voices that confronted all types of injustices.

"Already in the 70s more specific terms emerged, such as femicide; later, the term feminicide, which alludes, mainly, from the work developed by Mexican anthropologist Marcela Lagarde, to the irresponsibility and abandonment of the State before the problem, and there are already several studies that differentiate what is a homicide from a femicide and a feminicide and characterize them.

"Now there are already better tools, which come from the struggles for women's rights, feminist movements, women's organizations, that, linked to scientific study, have been contributing ways of thinking and acting on these issues and proposals for laws have been emerging."

In Europe and in the United States, women earn less than men. In Cuba, the first revolutionary law, which was approved one month after the triumph, on February 7, 1959, stipulated that women would earn the same salary as men, that is, already with the Revolution that ceased to be a problem for us. Other problems remained, because revolutions don't have magic wands; we have to continue working and finding how to do it better, but work has not stopped.

"Cuba was the first country to sign and later ratify CEDAW. Since the Cuban Women's Federation began, the matter was addressed, with the tools of knowledge that existed at that time in the world and that were developed in the country, that is, the Cuban Women's Federation was always advanced and active in the struggle against violence toward women, girls and boys. I, daughter of a federation member, can tell you that she, personally, attended cases of compañeras who came with very complex situations, when these were not yet strong topics of work, even at the scientific level in the world. Since the 80s, the FMC had a commission dedicated to attention and prevention of domestic violence. They did important work; they also convened researchers who were already working on issues of violence."

In recent times, what we are doing is uniting more institutions and civil society organizations, State and civil society, to advance in alliance, in campaigns, in concrete actions, in how to better carry it to policy, in how to better carry it to legislative changes that stem from the constitutional change and that are designed to address this reality.

"Work has been done here, the state has dealt with the issue, at the First International Symposium against gender-based violence, sexual tourism, human trafficking and prostitution, it was agreed that within the National Program for Education and Sexual Health, the Program for attention to all forms of violence would be addressed, already in September we delivered to the Ministry of Public Health the proposal for a Policy of Comprehensive Education on Sexuality and Sexual Rights, within that policy the program to address the problem of violence is contemplated. We are working, in the best way we can do it, in the times we live in and the legislation is coming, that is contemplated, because it is in the Constitution."

There are attacks to discredit our institutions, at people, for example at me. OnCuba was the first to launch a campaign against me, when I said in a documentary that in Cuba there was no feminicide. They took out that little piece, a Cuban journalist at OnCuba, they put it alone, without the arguments. So from there there are people whose fashion chip gets activated and if they launch a campaign from Miami, here there are four or five who take it and attacks begin, unjust attacks, without foundation, with profound ignorance and lack of knowledge, that do not help us advance on the subject.

"There is a lot of money, especially coming from the U.S. government toward 5 main evangelical churches, which are the ones trying to sabotage many initiatives, they are using this term of gender ideology, which was created by a Catholic bishop in the 60s, precisely to discredit international advances in the field of women's rights and Marxist-origin thinking in relation to this subject. And our Revolution, as Fidel said, has the right to defend itself, has the right to defend its social achievements, the rights that have been achieved and ratified in the Constitution and in the entire legislative system that is already being changed following the constitutional change. There are like more than 50 laws on the list that will be worked on, that once the commissions for each one of them are created, it will be decided whether to create a comprehensive law for attention to violence against women or if it is included in other laws, work is being done on that."

I believe the first message is that we study, that we prepare ourselves well, because there are many people who fall into the traps of campaigns to discredit our efforts, very poorly prepared people getting into Facebook, publishing things, besides, not to act in an isolated manner, we have to unite, make alliances, because every time we make alliances and unite, we achieve effectiveness, we achieve real change, so let's not play along with the enemies of the Revolution, let's unite among the organizations and institutions that are really working and that are open to all ideas that are truly sincere and committed to the revolutionary work.