Human Trafficking in [Cuba Street Children in [Cuba] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Cuba] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Republic of Cuba [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Cuba is a
source country for women and children trafficked internally for the purpose
of commercial sexual exploitation. Cuban adults and children also are
exploited for forced labor, mostly in commercial agriculture; some are
reportedly trafficked to the United States under circumstances of debt
bondage. The extent of trafficking within Cuba is hard to gauge due to the
closed nature of the government and sparse non-governmental or independent
reporting. However, by all accounts, the country is a major destination for
sex tourism, including child sex tourism. Cuba's thriving sex trade caters to
thousands of European, Canadian, and Latin American tourists every year, and
involves large numbers of Cuban girls and boys, some as young as 12.
State-run hotel workers, travel employees, cab drivers, hospitality staff,
and police steer tourists to prostituted women and children and facilitate
the commercial sexual exploitation of these women and children. Sex trafficking
of Cuban women to Mexico and Western Europe also has been reported. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2007 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Cuba in
Revolution --- Escape From a Lost Paradise The stories of immense human
courage, while bringing you to tears, also fills you with hope for the world,
knowing that there are still men left in the world of such a caliber.
Particularly touching was the story of the young Pedro Luis Boitel thrown in a prison where he was starved, beaten
daily and tortured beyond human endurance for the crime of disagreeing with
the supreme leader. During imprisonment his legs became infected secondary to
the torture wounds. At that point he weighed a mere eighty pounds. He was
denied medical attention and eventually both of his legs had to be amputated.
He still refused to yield to his torturers. Not satisfied, Castro ordered him
thrown in an even worse dungeon where he soon died. This story was to be
repeated thousands of times. As proclaimed by Hillary Clinton
in her book, It Takes a Village,
Castro also boldly stated that the children belong to the State. Forced labor
and indoctrination disguised as education was enforced with a gun. Children
were forcibly taken away from their parents at a tender age and made to do
hard labor in the cane and tobacco fields. The American media saw it as Cuban
patriotism, as did the useful idiot American students who travel to Cuba with
the Venceremos Brigades. ***
ARCHIVES *** Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – Trafficking victims came from all
over the country, and most worked in the major cities and tourist resort
areas. Anecdotal information indicated that victims came from poor families;
in many cases, families encouraged victims to enter into prostitution. There was no information available
regarding traffickers and their methods. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 1997 [23] With regard to the issues of
drug abuse and trafficking, child labor, child prostitution and suicide, the
Committee takes note of the information provided by the State party that
cases involving children are few and isolated. Nonetheless, it wishes to
express its concern that, in light of the considerable social and economic
problems facing the country, insufficient efforts are being taken by the
State party to devise preventive strategies to ensure that such problems do
not become more prevalent, thereby endangering future generations of
children. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 7 Civil Liberties: 7 Status: Not Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Refugee
Admissions Program for Latin America and the Caribbean CUBAN PROGRAM - At present, the majority of all
refugee processing in the region is based in Cuba.
As of September 9, 1994, all refugee admissions of Cubans are considered a
part of the U.S.-Cuba Bilateral Migration Agreement. The Agreement provides
for the approval of at least 20,000 Cubans for legal admission to the United
States annually, in a combination of immigrants, parolees, and refugees. The
majority of Cubans admitted as refugees have been political prisoners or
forced labor conscripts who have served sentences in the 1960s and 1970s. II. Cuba's International
Human Rights Obligations ARBITRARY ARREST, DETENTION, AND
EXILE - Cuba
frequently subjects nonviolent dissidents to arbitrary arrests and
detentions. Human rights activists and independent journalists are among the
government's most frequent targets, along with independent labor organizers,
religious believers, members of independent political parties, organizations
of independent academics and medical professionals, environmental activists,
and others. These improper arrests and detentions, which serve as
intimidating measures designed to silence dissent, violate Article 9 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Cuba often ratchets up pressure on
government opponents by subjecting them to repeated arrests, short-or
long-term detentions, or criminal prosecutions. In many cases, the government
then presents activists with the "choice" to go to prison, or
continue serving a prison term, or be exiled from their homeland. This
practice violates the UDHR, which explicitly
prohibits governments from exiling citizens from their own country. Trafficking
in Persons Report 2003: Cuba SUMMARY - Cuba (Tier 3) is a country of
internal trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Minors are
victimized in sexual exploitation connected to the state-run tourism industry. The Cuban government is one of the
most represive regimes in modern history. You are
right that Cubans are very friendly and social people, but their spirit today
is not the same. One of Fidel's first tasks when he came to power was to
install block leaders whose task it was to spy on their fellow citizens and
report to the government. I remember a small Cuban boy who came to my house
after Mariel and we asked him about conditions on
the Island. Crying he told us that he could not say anything bad about the
government because the "walls had ears." Cubans on the island are
afraid to tell you what is truly going on. New
threat of sanctions against Cuba is called symbolic A Bush administration announcement
that Cuba will face economic sanctions for failing to curtail the sexual exploitation
and forced labor of Cuban minors will have little impact beyond public
humiliation, several experts say.
''Leverage is minimal,'' said DamiᮠFernᮤez,
director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.
``This really is more symbolic than anything else.''. A
Criticism of FIU’s "Humanities in Cuba" As thousands of Cuban artists have
paid a very high personal and professional price for choosing not to become
instruments of an official "political culture," other Cuban
artists, used as spokesmen of the regime, create their work in an atmosphere
of double standard and self-censorship, given that "privileges"
such as publishing a book or traveling abroad are granted only to those who obey
and applaud "the Revolution." Will the course discuss those
artists subjected to forced labor for their "anti-social" behavior
at the infamous UMAP Cuban prison camps? Will the FIU
course mention the book "Out of the Game" by the Cuban poet Heberto Padilla, imprisoned and subjected to a
"Stalinist" trial in 1970 for questioning Cuban society through his
verse? Just last March and April,
seventy-five peaceful Cuban citizens, among them writers and poets, were
arrested, tried summarily, and condemned to prison sentences of up to 28
years. Will this FIU course mention two of these
poets, Raul Rivero and Manuel Vazquez Portal,
serving prison sentences of twenty and eighteen years, respectively, for
publishing dissenting views of the government? Cuba in
Revolution --- Escape from a Lost Paradise The stories of immense human
courage, while bringing you to tears, also fills you with hope for the world,
knowing that there are still men left in the world of such a caliber.
Particularly touching was the story of the young Pedro Luis Boitel thrown in a prison where he was starved, beaten
daily and tortured beyond human endurance for the crime of disagreeing with
the supreme leader. During imprisonment his legs became infected secondary to
the torture wounds. At that point he weighed a mere eighty pounds. He was
denied medical attention and eventually both of his legs had to be amputated.
He still refused to yield to his torturers. Not satisfied, Castro ordered him
thrown in an even worse dungeon where he soon died. This story was to be
repeated thousands of times. As proclaimed by Hillary Clinton
in her book, It Takes a Village,
Castro also boldly stated that the children belong to the State. Forced labor
and indoctrination disguised as education was enforced with a gun. Children
were forcibly taken away from their parents at a tender age and made to do
hard labor in the cane and tobacco fields. The American media saw it as Cuban
patriotism, as did the useful idiot American students who travel to Cuba with
the Venceremos Brigades. Fidel’s The
One Who Owes Reparations Ever since Castro came to power in
1959, Cubans have been denied the right to travel freely in and out of their
country. They have not had the right of free association, nor of forming
political parties, independent unions, or any religious and cultural
organizations. Freedom of expression has been non-existent,
and the regime has consistently controlled and censored the means of
publications, radio, television, and film. Since 1959, more than 100,000
Cubans have experienced life in Cuba’s prisons or forced labor camps for
their political beliefs. More than 15,000 have been executed for the same
reason. Torture has been institutionalized. This reality is best epitomized
by the Camilo-Cienfuegos plan, a forced labor camp
program that was founded in 1964 on the Isle of Pines. Working conditions
there were barbaric. Prisoners had to work almost naked. They were forced to
cut grass with their teeth or to sit in latrine trenches for long periods of
time. Torture was routine. Forced Labor
Continues To Make History With Cuban Tobacco So that the injustice is made
feasible, a legal mechanism exists that can be deemed diabolical. There is
only one buyer inside Cuba: the government, with the prerogative, moreover,
of establishing an absolute price for the farmers. Other regulations exist which
place today's harvesters in a condition not far removed from that of
forced-labor slaves. One example is the fines that can be levied if the
planting schemes imposed by the government are not fulfilled. Another is that
if a farmer does not fulfill his duties as prescribed by government, it will
take back land that had been "loaned" for his use. Sending Boy
Back To Cuba Means A Return To Slavery The argument for not returning
Elian to Cuba is grounded in the contention that, as a totalitarian communist
regime, we would be returning Elian to a life that is tantamount to slavery.
In Cuba, as in other communist regimes, property is owned by the state. You
work for the state and keep only what the state allows you to keep. You speak
what the state tells you to speak. You do what the state tells you to do. If
you try to leave that condition of virtual slavery, you do so at great peril,
as those gunned down in 1994 by Fidel Castro's police while trying to leave
discovered. The victims' families were not even allowed to bury the bodies. Political
Prisoners' Forced Labor Seven Days a Week The forced labor plantation
managed by the Ministry of the Interior (MININT)
along the highway to Maleza is obliging the
political prisoners to work without hourly limits seven days a week,
according to Danilo Santos Méndez,
member of the Pro Human Rights Party of Cuba. This group is affiliated with
the Andrei Sakharov Foundation. Legal
Changes in the Area of Labor Relations I. THE PRESENT SYSTEM - Any discussions of the labor
law and labor relations problems that may arise in Castro's Cuba, should
begin by defining the nature of the existing industrial relations systems. Unitl two years ago, that definition was a relatively
simple one: the Cuban system was a prime example, or perhaps as I have argued
on other occsions, an exacerbated version of the
Stalinist model. According to the Stalinist model,
the actors of industrial relations, i.e. the employers and the workers
organizations, lose their autonomy and become entirely subordinated to the
State and the communist party. Employers are nothing more than subservient
bureaucrats who adhere to government policies and follow the instructions of
the planning agency. Labor unions are deprived of the right to draw up their
by laws and programs of action and become organs of the state and
transmission belts of the communist party. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [Cuba Street Children in [Cuba] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Cuba] [other countries]