Four street children survive in the basement of the largest dollar supermarket in Havana

Havana/“That’s where the Minors girl is,” one of the four children whispers fearfully. 14ymedio interviewed this Wednesday after photos were published on social networks showing them sleeping on cardboard in the basement of Gran Muthu Habana. This luxury hotel is adjacent to the 3rd and 70 dollar Supermarket, opened earlier this year in the affluent neighborhood of Miramar.

When asked if they sleep there, two answer yes, that they do so “under the stairs” and that they do not have parents or other adults to take care of them.

How do they feed? They answer that “they eat from wheelbarrows.” The image of those children sleeping on cardboard, at the foot of a hotel that offers luxury tourist packages, is a reality that the official discourse has always tried to deny. The humanitarian crisis on the Island can no longer be hidden behind the posters of “We are happy here” or “Children are the hope of the world.”

The children of Greater Mathu are afraid and when they talk about “the Minors” they are referring to a worker at the Comprehensive Training Schools, or behavior centers, which depend on the Ministry of the Interior. In Cuba there are 12 of these institutions, each with about 200 resident infants, on average.

Until now, on the official side, only the businessman Carlos Miguel Pérez Reyes, deputy to Parliament for the Playa municipality, has reacted to the complaint. “The Council for Care of Minors of the Ministry of the Interior is the body responsible for these cases and there are numerous complaints and files, at least that is confirmed to me by residents of the area, although I still have to review this matter in detail with the institution. The municipal authorities confirm that it is a recurring problem that requires a comprehensive response,” said the also president of the MSME Dofleini Software.

The deputy also acknowledged that the problem “has spread to several points, where children ask for money daily, even late into the night.” He called on institutions to “provide comprehensive treatment to the situation,” since “reporting and collecting minors does not, by itself, solve the root of the phenomenon.”

The original publication generated a wave of comments among Internet users. Some also warned about the risks that these minors face: violence, sexual abuse, exploitation, trafficking and criminalization. “They are completely exposed. There is no responsible adult, there are no authorities to take care of them. They are easy prey for any exploitation,” warned a user who claimed to have also seen the children in the area.

In July 2025, the then Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó, was dismissed after declaring on television that “there are no beggars in Cuba,” a phrase that provoked outrage inside and outside the country. The statement, perceived as a blatant denial of reality, exposed the official strategy of making poverty invisible instead of confronting it.

The presence of homeless people is neither new nor exclusive to Havana. In recent years, the economic deterioration has pushed entire families to live in public spaces. Added to the lack of housing are inflation, food shortages and the collapse of social care systems. According to independent organizations, there are more and more minors on the streets, many of them orphans, children of emigrated parents, under the guardianship of sick elderly people or from broken homes.

Child labor is also becoming more and more frequent in Cuba. Officially denied or minimized, this phenomenon has become a palpable reality, driven by the economic crisis, informality and social deprivation. In Las Tunas, for example, children and adolescents sell sweets, food or various items on the streets, something that even the local official press was forced to recognize.

Although the State has legal regulations that prohibit child employment – ​​and allows some regulated exceptions –, in practice these rules crash into the lack of protection, extreme poverty and institutional omission. This brutal contrast between the letter of the laws and the daily lives of hundreds of children shows that more than an anomaly, child begging in Cuba is already a proven and spreading fact.