Human Trafficking In Cuba

Worsham 1 English 10 Gahan-F Due Date: April 6, 2009 Human Trafficking, a Travesty of Mankind Four miles off the coast of Venezuela, Reinaldo swam towards his freedom from Cuba, his home country. The last fifteen years of his life had been spent rebuilding an old, clunker, 1974 Ford Mustang into a hot sports car, which he sold for five-thousand dollars. In Cuba, that is a decent chunk of money and he could flee to the liberty of the United States. Leaving his family, he got on board a small boat with twenty other Cubans headed towards their freedom and away from Cuba. The boat dropped him off four miles from the coast of Venezuela, and he swam the rest of the distance. Forty year old Reinaldo then hiked through Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and finally Mexico. In each of these countries he was stopped by police or by human traffickers who threatened to kidnap him or send him back to Cuba. Every time he paid them off with money bribes. Carrying his five thousand dollars in numerous places on his person, like in his socks and the soles of his shoes, allowed him to avoid giving away all his money at once, but every time they would ask for a different amount and he would have to haggle to escape them. After months and months of hardship, walking by night and sleeping by day, struggling just to survive, Reinaldo reached his destination, America, by crossing the border into Texas. In Cuba, Reinaldo was a civil engineer, but because there were no jobs for him there it was as if he only had the title but it meant nothing. He came to America for a better life and to support his family. Many Cubans are similar to Reinaldo because they come to America for work, but unlike Reinaldo’s adventure, many Cubans are swindled and captured by the human traffickers. The captured are made to do forced labor or are pressured into sex slavery because they feel that they have no other option.

Worsham 2 English 10 Gahan-F Due Date: April 6, 2009 Doesn’t everyone have the right to hope for a better life? In Cuba, times are tough and finding a job that yields enough money to provide for a family is rare (Cuba). The Cuban economy has been declining as their major export, sugar, has majorly decreased in manufacturing (Sheehan Sean 41). Consequently, citizens in search of something better decide to leave Cuba to find a new life in a new country. But many, being naïve in their efforts, believe the lies that human traffickers tell and are pulled into a web of deception and deceit. The United States Department of Justice, executive director, Noeleen Heyzer pronounced that “many of the people are trafficked because they are provided with basically false information. They are promised a different kind of work and they end up with something else”. Thinking they will be transported somewhere else and then freed, the group of immigrants are lured onto a ship or boat of some kind, ready to leave the island of Cuba and head towards a freedom that they will never get to experience because they will be stuck with the traffickers. The fall of the economy, lack of jobs, and scarce of money flow has made people want to believe that things can improve and they become eager for any opportunity at a better life. When someone tells a Cuban that a person will take them away from Cuba for free and maybe even give them a job, the Cuban will most likely jump at such a generous offer, desperate to get a job. However, once the destination country is reached, the traffickers will tell them that they have to work for the transporters in order to pay off the cost of travel (Cuba (Tier 3)). The transportees, thinking that this makes sense, agree to work off their arrears. Then, the traffickers pay the workers little to nothing and make it impossible for the workers to pay off their debt. This way, citizens of Cuba fall into the trap of human trafficking and are stuck in a vicious cycle of hardship and poverty.

Worsham 3 English 10 Gahan-F Due Date: April 6, 2009 The crime of human trafficking, which according to The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, is defined as “the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them”, may seem to have one upside; a positive effect on the economy. Some ask how the illegal transportation and exploitation of humans can have a good effect on the economy, and the answer is that there is no positive effect overall, but it does have a few advantages. Cuba is a main destination for sex trafficking in the world (Cuba (Tier 3)). As a result, there is more money flow to Cuba because those people have to eat, stay in hotels, and find a way of transportation. All of these expenditures on the tourist’s part help to boost the economy because someone is getting paid for those jobs. However, what is not thought of is the effect that prostitution has on the people involved, who are mentally and physically harmed. Furthermore, many of the prostitutes may have diseases, which they are spreading around and not only have the diseases harmed them, but other men or women as well. These men and women spread it to even more men and women and eventually increase the total amount of disease in the world. This chain reaction creates an overall negative effect on the Cuban’s and the world’s economy and consequently shows that the idea of prostitution having an optimistic effect on the economy is not true. According to Gunilla S. Ekbers, the special advisor on prostitution and trafficking in women at the Swedish division for gender equality: Some prostitution defenders argue that prostitution is an acceptable solution to poverty.... What they mean, but do not say, is that prostitution is an acceptable solution for women living in poverty. Seldom do we see proposals that poor men should make their way out of poverty by welcoming the insertion of penises and

Worsham 4 English 10 Gahan-F Due Date: April 6, 2009 other objects into them on a regular basis or dance naked on a stage in front of ogling and masturbating males. The prostitution industry exploits to its advantage the fact that most women and children who are in prostitution come from the most oppressed and vulnerable groups in society. This quote explains one of the many reasons why prostitution should be illegal, because it is demeaning to women. It is a dominantly female practice, so if men can find another way to feed their families, there has to be another way for women. Prostitution may seem to be a suitable way to earn a living and put food on the table for a family, but it plainly is not. The Cuban government needs to punish those who traffic women through prostitution and make the act illegal. The Cuban government is on the “Tier 3” list, which means that “the government of Cuba does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and it is not making significant efforts to do so” (Cuba (Tier 3)). Prostitution is happening inside the country of Cuba and the forced labor of Cubans is taking place outside the country as well, alongside prostitution on the inside. It’s even legal for a person over the age of sixteen in Cuba to be a prostitute. Also, the trafficking of adults for forced labor is not currently prohibited under Cuban law. The Cuban government needs to be and needs to be doing more to eradicate human trafficking in their country. The first step to eliminate human trafficking is to educate people. The same way that sex abusers of children are marked, human traffickers should be marked in the same way (Millar Micheline R). The United States Department of Trafficking in Persons advises in their article “Cuba (Tier 3)” that Cuba needs to

Worsham 5 English 10 Gahan-F Due Date: April 6, 2009 amend anti-trafficking laws to prohibit all forms of trafficking; increase law enforcement efforts against trafficking offenders; provide greater legal protections and assistance for victims; develop procedures to identify trafficking victims among vulnerable populations; increase anti-trafficking training for law enforcement; take greater steps to prevent child prostitution and child sex tourism; and rescue children from the commercial sex trade. If Cuba takes all of this advice, they will not only improve their current standings, but eventually end up on Tier One as well, where human trafficking is illegal. There are still 27 million slaves around the world today because people do not realize the full extent of the problem and are not aware of what they can really do to fix it (freetheslaves.net). If everyone in the world just learns everything they can and stands up to the politicians and government and demands stricter policies on human trafficking the number of slaves will decrease, hopefully to zero one day. The world must realize how much of a problem human trafficking is and do all we can to stop it.