Madrid Spain.- This Thursday the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) presented in Madrid its fifth report on “The State of Social Rights in Cuba”.
In the panel, moderated by CubaNet, Yaxys Cires, Director of Strategies at the Observatory, and Daily Coro, a Cuban doctor and member of the Observatory, spoke and presented the main problems that have affected Cubans over the last year, such as poverty, the drug crisis, food shortages , inflation, among others.
According to the data collected by the Observatory, based on interviews conducted with 1,227 Cubans in 59 municipalities of 14 of the 16 provinces of the Island, more than 72% of Cubans live below the poverty line and only 14% of these people expect their personal situation to improve in the near future.
In his speech, Yaxys Cires pointed out that to analyze the poverty threshold, the study is based on World Bank standards, which places it at $1.90 per day.
“Based on household income, 72% of Cuban households live on less than $1.90 a day,” he specified.
For her part, the doctor Daily Coro stressed that Cuba is facing the incidence of infectious diseases such as dengue, and every day news arrives of mothers who they don’t have medicine to lower the fever of their children.
“Eight out of ten Cubans do not get the medicines they need at the pharmacy,” he stressed.
The majority of the population (56%) finds it necessary to make some kind of gift or payment to receive care in the public health system. Just as 57% obtained medicines thanks to the help of churches (8%), relatives abroad (17%) or through other means (black market, interpersonal solidarity, bartering…).
Another aspect that stands out in the study is the view that the government and the political system are among the country’s main problems. Young people between 18 and 30 years old referred significantly more to the political system (42%) as the main problem.
While regarding the labor issue, the vast majority of the population considers that free trade union activity is not allowed in Cuba (70%). 64% believe that the labor rights of workers are not respected in the country, and more than half of those interviewed considered that there is discrimination of some kind for a person to access a job (56%). Among the factors that enhance employment discrimination, they pointed out, in the first place, political ideas (82%).
Based on all these data, the Cuban Human Rights Observatory highlighted that the results of the investigation confirm “the growing deterioration of social rights on the Island, due to the accumulated structural crises and the lack of political will of the authorities to make the changes that the country needs.
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