Teresa Amarelle Boué, General Secretary of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba, published a message on July 11 on the social media of the organization, in which she acknowledged that the Cuban crisis impacts women particularly hard.
However, true to its mission of social control and repression of dissent, the leader took advantage of her publication to warn families about the consequences they face if they protest alongside their children, in what independent organizations labeled as a veiled threat.
The message, disseminated on the fifth anniversary of the July 11 protests of 2021, attributed the shortages to the American embargo — which the FMC refers to as a "genocidal blockade" — and added that "not everything can be explained by that external aggression."
But the paragraph that generated the most backlash was the one that warned that "our children should not be exposed to actions that often constitute crimes and become aggressive," referring directly to the civic demonstrations that, in June 2026, reached a historic record of 107 protests across the country.
Amarelle Boué also wrote that "children and adolescents have the right to be protected, to grow in safe environments, without being used as shields or instruments of protest," an argument that the independent feminist organization Alas Tensas dismantled point by point this Wednesday.
"While the Federation of Cuban Women, the only women's organization allowed in Cuba, uses its social media to threaten families protesting alongside their children due to the deep crisis in the country, violence against women continues to take lives in Cuba," stated Alas Tensas on their social media platform X.
The feminist platform, which operates from exile and maintains the Gender Observatory (OGAT), provided figures that contradict the protective narrative of the FMC: 41 femicides have been verified in Cuba so far in 2026, according to the OGAT record.
The comparison between May and June of 2025 and the same period in 2026 is particularly alarming: cases rose from four to 17, an increase of 325%. In May 2026, eight femicides were recorded compared to one in May 2025; in June, there were nine compared to three.
The contradiction pointed out by Alas Tensas is structural: the FMC is not a civil society organization, but rather an entity created by the State in 1960 that acts as a conduit for the Communist Party to the female population.
Her own general secretary is part of the Political Bureau of the PCC. Amarelle Boué herself stated in February 2026 that in Cuba "there is neither a failed state nor a collapse", despite the documented humanitarian crisis.
The regime, meanwhile, has responded to the protests with 1,949 repressive actions in the first half of 2026, including the detention of at least six minors in June, and threats to mothers regarding the withdrawal of custody of their children if they continued to protest, according to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH).
In June, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) recognized the FMC for its work on equality and protection of women, an action widely criticized by activists who point out that the organization does not publish transparent records of femicides nor report misogynistic violence in real time.
Alas Tensas was emphatic in its conclusion: "Using the discourse of child protection to discourage civic protest does not replace the state's responsibility to ensure women's right to live free from violence."
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