Child labor: the scourge that Cuba can no longer hide

HOLGUÍN, Cuba. – “I have seen children working in the streets, children of eight or nine years old selling anything, even cigarettes and matches. And then, do these children not go to school or what? Here there is no control over anything,” laments Holguin native Roberto Pérez, resident in the El Llano neighborhood of the provincial capital city.

But what he says could be repeated by anyone who walks the streets of the city often: child labor, a phenomenon that for decades the Cuban regime considered eradicated in the country, is today a daily occurrence, the most visible indicator of a deep economic and social crisis that forces families to make desperate decisions, in contrast to a legal framework that seems to exist only on paper.

Children working in informal commerce no longer surprise Holguín residents. For many, it is a scene that is frequently repeated in different places in the city of Holguín, motivated by family precariousness.

María Rodríguez, a resident of the Villa Nueva neighborhood, experiences it closely in her community. “In my neighborhood there is a boy whose mother sends him to sell bread. The poor little boy is about eight or nine years old.”

What could previously be considered a problem on the periphery has moved to the very heart of the Holguin city, for everyone to see.

Carlos Vega, from Pueblo Nuevo, describes the normalization of these cases that, unfortunately, are no longer isolated. “I have seen children selling garlic, selling peanuts… Children of seven or eight years old. That is child labor in everyone’s face. And don’t think that they are far away, in a hidden neighborhood, whatever; it is in the very center of the city. And nothing happens.”

Children are the last link in an informal trade chain that encompasses everything imaginable. “Nowadays you see everything. I have come across boys aged 15 and under who walk on the street selling whatever appears. They pass by hawking garlic, onion, fongo… everything,” says Alberto Fuentes, from the Alcides Pino neighborhood.

Beyond street vending, there are more organized and hidden forms of child labor, in risky conditions and with a clear impact on school performance. The experience of Jorge Martínez, from the Alex Urquiola cast, confirms this trend: “My wife is a high school teacher and has students who work in the guarapera and others making tiles. The children live with their divorced mother with one or two other siblings and in financial need. The pension that the father spends is not enough at all.”

For her part, Yanelis Cruz, a mother living in Pueblo Nuevo, expresses the pain that many feel, but few say: “I am a mother and my heart breaks when I see a child selling on the street. Some walk in small groups, but the majority you see alone.”

The “normalization” of the problem has led to a kind of collective blindness in the face of a reality that is too hard to face. “At first one was shocked, now people pass by, look askance and continue on their run-run. I get sad, because I think about my grandchildren, but the truth is that most people ignore the child who is selling on the street and continue on their way,” says Beatriz Sarmiento, from the El Llano neighborhood.

Cuban laws are clear, but their application is practically non-existent. “The law,” says Alberto Fonseca, a resident of the Vista Alegre neighborhood, “is like a beautiful painting hanging on the wall: it is there to decorate, but it serves no practical purpose. Where are the social workers, the juvenile police? In practice, no one wants to find a problem with a family that is starving. It is easier to look and ignore the situation,” asserts this Holguín resident.

In its article 66, the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba prohibits “the work of girls, boys and adolescents,” and article 86 reinforces the “obligation of the State, society and families to provide special protection to girls, boys and adolescents.”

For his part, the Labor Code, In its article 26, it sets the minimum age for admission to employment at 18 years, with very specific exceptions for adolescents between 15 and 17 years old.

He Penal Code It goes further and, in its article 369, establishes sanctions for “whoever forces or uses a person to perform a job or provide a service against their will” and considers it an aggravating circumstance that the victim is under 18 years of age.

Also a new Code of Children, Adolescence and Youth, not yet approved, “ratifies that all child labor constitutes a form of exploitation,” according to Cubadebate.

However, the general perception is that the law is a dead letter, as stated by Elena Batista, from the Hilda Torres cast. “It is the parents themselves who send them to sell their children on the street. That is prohibited, but that is not enforced here.”

The reasons behind this massive disobedience of the law do not seem to be, in general, a lack of awareness, but rather the economic crisis. A parent’s decision to send their child to the streets is the last resort in a context of low salaries and high cost of living due to inflation and an economic model that does not offer alternatives. “No parent in their right mind,” says Jorge Luis Aguilera, from Holguín, “wants to see their child on the street having to work, but when there is no food in the house, when you don’t even have the money for bread from the warehouse, things change. Need is bad and sometimes the only option left is for everyone, even the smallest, to contribute something. It’s survival,” says Aguilera.

The official numbers, although conservative, present a critical economic outlook. The average monthly salary in the first six months of 2025, according to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), was around 6,649 pesos.

Meanwhile, year-on-year inflation is 15.2%, a statistic reported by the same entity last September. However, economist Steve Hanke provides a much more critical estimate and places real inflation at 39.5%, which would place the country as the fourth most inflationary economy in the world.

This panorama, defined by the organization Food Monitor Program (FMP) as “polycrisis”has direct effects on the most vulnerable. “As the polycrisis worsens and emigration empties communities in Cuba, more children and adolescents are getting involved in informal work (…). FMP warns of the advance of multifactorial poverty in the country that facilitates the silent naturalization of child survival exercises,” says the NGO.

The old slogan that “millions of children work in the world and none of them are Cuban” has been denied by the official press itself. Media of the Communist Party of Cuba such as newspapers Sierra Maestra and 26 have published on the subject. In the latter, Juan Miguel Barrios, deputy director of Education in Las Tunas, had to admit it: “A few days ago I found a little boy on the street selling tamarinds with his mother. That is child labor. If you asked me if cases of children associated with this scourge have been identified in Las Tunas, I would answer affirmatively.”

And he continues: “We have identified some minors involved in cutting grass in certain places so that someone is in charge of selling it later and thus obtaining income. We also detected others linked to actors who sell products, especially agricultural products, on the street.”