A woman from Santiago, on the verge of being the 18th fatal victim of sexist violence in Cuba in 2024
HAVANA, Apr 25. A preschool teacher from Santiago de Cuba survived an attack by her ex-husband, which almost made her the 18th fatal victim of sexist violence on the island so far this year.The independent civil society observatories confirmed the attempt suffered by Triana Ferrer, the director of the Gender Observatory of the feminist magazine Alas Tensas, Ileana Álvarez.
The fact was disclosed on Facebook by the journalist based in the United States Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, who assured that the educator and mother of at least one daughter is recovering at the Joaquín Castillo Duany Military Hospital, where she was treated.
According to the sources who informed Mayeta Labrada of the incident, the attack occurred in the survivor’s house, in the Hoyo de Chicharrones neighborhood, in the eastern Cuban province. It would not have been the first attack by the ex-husband against Ferrer, who would have reported him without being heard by the authorities.
On this occasion, Ferrer received three stab wounds – one of them near the heart – but “he is progressing satisfactorily and in a few days he will be discharged,” according to a person who works at the hospital and who preferred to remain anonymous told Mayeta Labrada.
According to the journalist’s source, Triana Ferrer told him that she had denounced her ex-husband five times because he threatened to kill her.
“The same woman in the police always attended to her and she told him, he’s not going to be anything to you, that’s a marital problem, and look what happened,” the journalist quoted her source. The aggressor had previously injured Ferrer in the face and her arm.
The source also said that the survivor’s ex-husband turned himself into the police and thought he had killed her ex-wife.
According to Mayeta Labrada, many mothers whose children have gone through the educational center where Triana Ferrer works have written to her to express their solidarity with the educator.
The underreporting of femicides by OGAT and Yo Sí Te Creo in 2024—which fills the gap in official figures on sexist violence in Cuba—records 17 fatalities. Triana Ferrer was on the verge of being number 18.
Her attempted femicide brings those verified by both groups to three. The under-registration also includes five cases in which access to the police investigation is required.
The case of the Santiago educator refutes, once again, an extensive article that the official newspaper Granma dedicated this month to demonstrating that the Criminal Procedure Law, approved in Cuba in 2021, protects women.
Triana Ferrer has been luckier than several Cuban women murdered by ex-partners whom she had denounced. Dinosca Rivera Martí, one of the confirmed fatal victims of sexist violence in Cuba in 2024, had survived a previous attack by her murderer, the father of her children.
He attacked her with a machete and was detained after she reported him. The Police released him a few days later. Months later, she killed Rivera Martí with a knife, on the street and in daylight.
Of the 89 fatalities verified in 2023 by OGAT and Yo Sí Te Creo in Cuba, at least nine had reported their attackers.
In January of this year, Cuban Heidy Peña had to resort to social networks to get the Police to arrest the father of her children for threatening her. Previously, despite her complaints and the evidence presented, the agents had arrested the individual twice and released him on bail, Peña reported on Facebook.
