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The Union of Young Communists of Cuba (UJC) published on June 12, World Day Against Child Labor, a message on Facebook stating that "thanks to the Revolution, child labor is not a reality in our country," while pointing out that "in other countries, millions of boys and girls continue to be exploited."
The post, accompanied by an image of a child carrying a bundle of plants, unleashed a wave of outraged responses from Cubans who contradicted the official message with firsthand accounts of what they witness daily on their streets.
"In Cuba, there are those asking for money or washing windshields at traffic lights. There are those selling bread, selling small packets of soft drinks, asking neighbors to take out the trash for a little something, and the most common are those who don't go to school after a hot night without electricity and just having a piece of bread for dinner," wrote the user Yordy Cha Cal.
Iran Capote summed up the general sentiment: "You have to be very out of touch or extremely disconnected from the reality of the country. Walk through the streets and see children begging for money or selling things to help their families."
Indira Rionda was more direct: "Thousands of children are working and gathering raw materials in the dumps. Childhood is mired in cruel misery."
Several users also recalled the historic "schools in the countryside", a program instituted by the regime that sent secondary and pre-university students to work in agricultural tasks for weeks.
"And schools sent secondary school children to the fields for 45 days, picking coffee, potatoes, raw materials, and those in preschool were forced to work in the fields daily. Weren't those children?" Javier Cayon asked.
The contradiction in the UJC's message is even more evident because President Miguel Díaz-Canel admited in April 2025 the existence of the phenomenon: «We have always felt proud, because the Revolution eliminated them, and we cannot allow this to proliferate during this period of economic crisis: the needy, the beggars, the homeless, informal work involving children, the harassment of tourists».
At the end of 2024, the government itself acknowledged that nearly 200,000 children and adolescents were in vulnerable or at-risk situations, and that around 9,000 minors under the age of six were in a "complex social situation."
Just two days before the UJC's publication, a 10-year-old boy went out to sell coquitos on the street to help support his mother and three siblings.
In May, reports surfaced about a 14-year-old teenager looking for work to help his mother and a 13-year-old child mowing yards.
User Manuel Alejandro Studyo provided another concrete testimony: "In my neighborhood, there are children aged six and eight who work to collect garbage."
Yeny Calderón succinctly captured the reality with a phrase that echoed throughout the comments: "Children in Cuba stop being children at the age of 7, which is when they take away their milk, and they have no right to dream because in a country where one cannot sleep, one cannot dream."
The rise of child labor in Cuba is driven by the economic crisis, an aging population, and migratory exodus that leaves families without adult providers, with 89% of Cuban households living in extreme poverty according to reports from 2025.
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