January 2024
The challenges of addressing gender-based violence
By Aime Sosa Pompa, Marilys Suárez Moreno,
Gabriela Orihuela, Marilys Zayas Shuman.
Gabriela Orihuela, Marilys Zayas Shuman.
In Cuba, we are not exempt from gender-based violence. Punches, insults, screams, humiliation, contempt, submission, and even prohibitions and death threats are part of the unlimited world of those who make violence a modus vivendi since the physical and psychological humiliation of the victim is characteristic of this type of relationship.
Experts on the subject assure that gender violence is structural and systemic and includes a set of attitudes, expressions, and manifestations of various kinds. A single objective guides the perpetrators: to subdue, degrade, and control their victims, causing them physical and psychological suffering and, on many occasions, even death.
Two years after a strategy
Since December 9, 2021, Cuba has had the “Comprehensive Strategy for the Prevention and Attention to Gender Violence and the Family Realm”—approved through agreement 9231 of the Council of Ministers—; The document places us in a scenario of legal progress and above all, on a better path towards a legal and rights culture with a gender focus.
A recent evaluation of this instrument has shown that gender violence is a social, health, and human rights problem and that what has been done is not enough. In terms of communication, the training of journalists, communicators, as well as artists continues to be essential since making gender violence visible must be done with respect, justice, and empathy to avoid re-victimizing survivors.
An action protocol for an inclusive and respectful work environment
There are many challenges that 2024 will bring for concrete actions and responses to gender-based violence in Cuba. Precisely, among the current Cuban regulations, which clear a path where we are already going with all courage and liveliness, is the Protocol for Action in Situations of Discrimination, Violence, and Harassment in the Workplace. In addition to being the first of its kind, it is a valuable instrument, an exhaustive legal mechanism, and a clarifying document regarding everything harmful to human dignity.
For the Protocol, article 14 assumes that gender-based violence in the workplace is violence that constitutes a practice that violates human rights. It involves physical abuse and also includes other forms of violence, such as psychological, sexual, economic, and symbolic, directed towards a person based on the adopted gender as a result of the assignment of specific sociocultural attributes and roles, which acts by converting sexual diversity, in social inequality. With these understandings, many disciplinary regulations, agreements, and provisions must already be in the change process, in line with this broad characterization.
Experts on the subject assure that gender violence is structural and systemic and includes a set of attitudes, expressions, and manifestations of various kinds. A single objective guides the perpetrators: to subdue, degrade, and control their victims, causing them physical and psychological suffering and, on many occasions, even death.
Two years after a strategy
Since December 9, 2021, Cuba has had the “Comprehensive Strategy for the Prevention and Attention to Gender Violence and the Family Realm”—approved through agreement 9231 of the Council of Ministers—; The document places us in a scenario of legal progress and above all, on a better path towards a legal and rights culture with a gender focus.
A recent evaluation of this instrument has shown that gender violence is a social, health, and human rights problem and that what has been done is not enough. In terms of communication, the training of journalists, communicators, as well as artists continues to be essential since making gender violence visible must be done with respect, justice, and empathy to avoid re-victimizing survivors.
An action protocol for an inclusive and respectful work environment
There are many challenges that 2024 will bring for concrete actions and responses to gender-based violence in Cuba. Precisely, among the current Cuban regulations, which clear a path where we are already going with all courage and liveliness, is the Protocol for Action in Situations of Discrimination, Violence, and Harassment in the Workplace. In addition to being the first of its kind, it is a valuable instrument, an exhaustive legal mechanism, and a clarifying document regarding everything harmful to human dignity.
For the Protocol, article 14 assumes that gender-based violence in the workplace is violence that constitutes a practice that violates human rights. It involves physical abuse and also includes other forms of violence, such as psychological, sexual, economic, and symbolic, directed towards a person based on the adopted gender as a result of the assignment of specific sociocultural attributes and roles, which acts by converting sexual diversity, in social inequality. With these understandings, many disciplinary regulations, agreements, and provisions must already be in the change process, in line with this broad characterization.
