In Cuba theprostitution with foreigners in exchange for telephone recharges, stated theMinistry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) in its recent National Report on Prevention and Confrontation ofHuman Trafficking and Victim Protection in 2022.
"The incidence in Cuba of foreigners who interact with young people engaged in prostitution in exchange for gifts and telephone recharges persists, as well as the online promotion and sale of videos and images with sexual content, whose payment is made through bank transfers from abroad and inside the country,” indicated the Cuban Foreign Ministry.
The phenomen is not new and hence the Foreign Ministry recognizes the failure of the Cuban regime to eradicate a degrading form of sexual exploitation in exchange for remuneration in kind, an indicator of the massive rates of poverty and social exclusion in Cuba.
Prostitution in exchange for telephone recharges is revealing of the high rates imposed on its users by the monopoly ofETECSA, belonging to the business conglomerate of the Cuban military (GAESA), as well as the paltry income received by minimum wage workers and Cuban pensioners, seven times lower than those computed by international organizations to define levels of extreme poverty.
Hereport detected a significant decrease in this criminal activity on the island due to the incidence of COVID-19 and the epidemiological situation unleashed worldwide, which forced the closure of borders and caused a drastic decrease in tourism in Cuba.
"However, the criminal actions focused on the recruitment of young women by foreign and Cuban businessmen to provide bar and nightclub services in Russia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, China and Cyprus, context in which monitoring was provided to 3 foreigners,” the document indicated.
In mid-July, three men wereconvicted of smuggling women from Cuba into the United States and have them work in strip clubs in the Houston, Texas area.
The United States Department of Justice reported thatRasiel Gutiérrez Moreno (38 years),Hendry Jiménez Milanés (39) andRafael Mendoza Labrada(29), were sentenced to 210, 120 and 34 months in federal prison, respectively.
"These human traffickers terrorized migrant women, using sex clubsstriptease of Houston combined with psychological threats and sexual violence for personal financial gain," stated U.S. AttorneyAlamdar S. Hamdani.
The judge ordered Moreno to pay $451,298 in restitution to the victims, and Milanés to pay $359,108, the statement explains.
"The victims came to the United States in search of a new life, they were especially vulnerable, and the defendants took advantage of that," Hamdani said.
In the Conclusions of its recent report, MINREX stressed its “willingness to cooperate with all countries and international organizations, far from the manipulation for political purposes of such a sensitive issue.”
The United States government has criticized the Cuban regime on several occasions for not doing enough to eliminate human trafficking and keeping its professionals who work abroad under exploitative conditions, similar to forced labor.
“The sending of medical workers and other professionals abroad in conditions similar to forced labor demonstrates thatCuba does not do enough to eliminate Human Trafficking", indicated in July 2022 the embassy of that country in Havana in a tweet, in which it also shared a link to a report on these social conditions on the island.
Among other issues, the US government criticized the Cuban regime for not “having made significant efforts” in this area, beyond specific actions.
“However, during this reporting period, there was a government policy or pattern to profit from professional services export programs, with strong indications of forced labor, particularly in its overseas medical missions program,” he noted.
Bruno Rodriguez Grill, head of MINREX, responded: “Your slander will not tarnish the exemplary work in preventing and combating this scourge or weaken our commitment to international medical cooperation.”
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