The Cuban comedian and internet user Luis Alberto Ramírez «Katungo» published a text on Facebook titled "The Children of the Revolution," in which he dismantles the official narrative regarding child protection in Cuba, directly responding to a post by Leticia Martínez Hernández, head of the press team for Miguel Díaz-Canel.
«The true revolution, the one that will someday come to Cuba, will be the one that restores to children their innocence, their joy, and their right to dream, without slogans or rifles,» he wrote in a post on Facebook.
The trigger was a statement from the official on social media following the dissemination of images of children sleeping in the gardens of the Gran Muthu Habana hotel in Miramar.
Martínez wrote: “This revolution does a lot for its children, daily and on all fronts. Let this never be forgotten. But situations like that photo of children sleeping on the streets that is circulating are unacceptable.”
Katungo responded with a question that captures the irony of his text: is it inadmissible to publish the photo or to allow the situation?
The commentator traces the history of the treatment of children under the revolutionary system: the disappearance of toys from shop windows, the abolition of the Three Wise Men and Christmas, and the imposition of the model of the "new child," one who was to be "a pioneer for communism" and "like Che."
"A government that believes children over the age of seven do not need milk cannot claim to care about them," writes Katungo, pointing to the rationing policy in place since the 1960s as a symbol of a mindset that does not regard childhood as a vulnerable sector but rather as an ideological resource.
The photo that sparked the debate showed at least six minors between the ages of eight and fourteen sleeping on cardboard in the hotel gardens.
According to testimonies collected at the time, the children had been in the area for more than a month after being expelled by the police from the vicinity of a nearby business center. The regime ended up taking action against the parents instead of offering protection to the minors, as reported by state television.
For Katungo, what Martínez describes as "inadmissible" is neither a recent nor an isolated phenomenon. "Far from offering them protection or assistance, the authorities repress them. Many are detained and sent to 're-education centers,' where they learn, through violence, that poverty is also a crime," he states.
Katungo, who in July 2026 published another critical text about the regime dismantling a philosophical metaphor from Díaz-Canel, summarizes his text on childhood with a phrase that becomes a judgment: "an abandoned childhood, without toys, without milk, without a future."
The data supports that description. The Cuban Observatory of Conflicts registered 71 reports of child labor and begging during 2025. UNICEF reported in November of that year that 9% of Cuban children under the age of five were experiencing severe food insecurity.
The Food Monitor Program warned that 90% of primary schools lacked stable access to drinking water or proteins. The government itself acknowledged in late 2024 that nearly 200,000 children and adolescents were in vulnerable or at-risk situations.
In 2026, documented cases multiplied: a 10-year-old boy selling garlic and bread without having eaten, children aged eight to ten selling bananas in Las Tunas, and two children aged 11 and 13 selling bread on the street to help their families.
All of this while the Union of Young Communists stated that "thanks to the Revolution," child labor was not a reality in Cuba, a statement that sparked a wave of contrary testimonies on social media.
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