Freelance author and Cuba scholar Rebecca Bodenheimer studies on the #YoSíTeCreo motion in Cuba, writing that alleged assaults by musicians have sparked a bigger dialog on gender violence within the nation. Learn full article at International Coverage.
On April 18, certainly one of Cuba’s most outstanding musicians, José Luis Cortés, died instantly on the age of 70 after struggling a stroke. Recognized by his nickname, “El Tosco” (“the tough man”), Cortés based the dance band NG La Banda, one of many pioneers of the Cuban salsa fashion referred to as timba, the preferred style on the island from the late Nineteen Eighties to the mid-aughts.
However Cortés was additionally recognized for his machismo, each in his music and life. In 2019, Dianelys Alfonso, generally known as “La Diosa” (“the goddess”)—a singer with NG La Banda from 2003 to 2009—stated that Cortés had repeatedly sexually assaulted and crushed her throughout the course of their romantic relationship. In a subsequent interview, she expressed concern of retaliation by Cortés, saying he despatched her a threatening textual content warning there can be “penalties” after she went public. She additionally described him as bodily abusive together with his ex-wife and one other girl within the band. Upon information of his loss of life in April, Alfonso wrote on Instagram that each phrase she’d stated about Cortés was true—and that he wouldn’t be hitting anybody anymore.
Alfonso’s 2019 allegations are thought-about the start of an organized #MeToo motion in Cuba, which was popularized with the hashtag #YoSíTeCreo (“I do consider you”). A corresponding platform with the identical title was subsequently based by an nameless group of Cuban feminists because the “first Cuban platform to assist individuals in conditions of sexist violence.” [. . .]
Little has modified within the male-dominated, state-run Cuban music business since 2019. Now, a a lot bigger case of alleged sexual assault involving dozens of victims has underscored the urgency of not solely the #YoSíTeCreo motion but in addition the bigger combat in opposition to gender-based violence in Cuba.
Final December, a number of ladies publicly accused singer-songwriter Fernando Bécquer of sexual assault or tried assault. Bécquer just isn’t a family title, nor does he have anyplace close to the extent of affect that Cortés had. However the scope of this case is way greater, and the tally of accusers now stands at roughly 30 ladies, in keeping with the impartial Cuban media outlet El Estornudo, which printed the accounts of 16 ladies in March. These testimonies span over twenty years, from 1999 to 2021, and three of them are by ladies who had been minors on the time of their alleged encounters with Bécquer. Mario Luis Reyes, the El Estornudo journalist who has been overlaying the case, has stated that after the primary piece was printed in December, he acquired “an avalanche” of messages from different ladies saying they had been victims of Bécquer; amongst them had been a minimum of 5 who had been minors on the time of their alleged assaults.
The accounts depict a transparent sample of grooming. Just about all the ladies who shared their tales stated they expressed curiosity within the Yoruba-derived faith Santería earlier than their encounters with Bécquer, who claimed to be a excessive priest of the faith. He would then counsel a non secular cleaning that concerned sexual acts to unravel their issues, they stated. (It ought to be famous that no precise Santería ceremonies contain sexual exercise.) [. . .]
Whereas some state establishments have made imprecise declarations denouncing violence in opposition to ladies because the allegations surfaced, only a few have talked about Bécquer. Just one, the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Cultural Heart, a Havana-based establishment devoted to rescuing and selling oral historical past and collective reminiscence, has launched an announcement explicitly supporting the ladies who accused him. A couple of high-profile musicians have come to his protection, and Bécquer clearly felt emboldened sufficient by their assist after Cortés’s loss of life to handle the #YoSíTeCreo activists on Fb, telling them to “discover a husband or spouse you want and respect the reminiscence of the maestro José Luis Cortés (El Tosco).”
Havana-based activist Marta María Ramírez, who has been advocating for survivors of gender violence since 1995, estimates that solely seven ladies have made police studies in opposition to Bécquer—lower than 1 / 4 of the ladies who’ve made nameless allegations. Though the police have launched an investigation into Bécquer, Ramírez stated, “There may be so little transparency round the entire course of [of reporting sexual assault] that we don’t even know the variety of formal accusations.”
Whereas a lot of Bécquer’s accusers concern potential retaliation from him, Ramírez stated some merely don’t consider within the capacity of institutional buildings to acquire true justice. #YoSíTeCreo stated this case reveals that present laws, which doesn’t deal with gender violence as a particular type of violence stemming from misogyny, “is extraordinarily flimsy as a result of it’s so outdated.” [. . .]
Whereas visibility round gender violence has been rising in recent times, the combat to reform Cuba’s authorized system has been a lot slower.
Cuban feminist activism in opposition to gender violence dates again to the Nineties, when the Federation of Cuban Ladies (FMC), the state organ tasked with overseeing ladies’s points in Cuba, arrange counseling facilities in every province to assist home violence victims. However analysis performed by feminist scholar Ailynn Torres Santana has concluded that the FMC counseling facilities’ attain is kind of restricted. Between 2015 and 2018, the middle within the japanese Cuban metropolis of Baracoa solely assisted in 28 instances of intimate companion violence, though throughout that very same interval there have been 360 associated police studies.
A uncommon nationwide survey performed by the Cuban authorities in 2016 revealed that over 1 / 4 of Cuban ladies had been topic to intimate companion violence throughout the earlier 12 months, and nearly 40 p.c had skilled that type of violence in some unspecified time in the future of their lives. Lower than 4 p.c of girls who had skilled intimate companion violence had turned to the authorities. There may be additionally proof that the speed of home violence has elevated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The #YoSíTeCreo motion emerged in the identical 12 months Cuban feminist activists petitioned Cuba’s Nationwide Meeting for a complete legislation in opposition to gender violence, in November 2019. Following the mannequin of different Latin American international locations, such a legislation would assure that the Cuban Penal Code deal with gender violence, together with femicide, as a particular crime associated to the historic and continued subjugation of girls, together with transgender ladies.
As a result of there isn’t any established protocol for instances of gender violence in Cuba, #YoSíTeCreo defined, the police deal with it as they’d some other crime. The activists described the standard course of {that a} home violence sufferer undergoes “throughout the out of date, revictimizing Cuban justice system.” [. . .]
For full article, see https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/24/cuba-music-metoo-gender-violence-sexual-assault-femicide-becquer/
Additionally see https://www.dw.com/en/metoo-cuba-will-the-movement-spread-to-the-island/a-49375437
[Photo above: Cuban singer Dianelys Alfonso from https://www.dw.com/en/metoo-cuba-will-the-movement-spread-to-the-island/a-49375437]