Arequipa, Peru – The official press of the Castro regime recognized this weekend the increase in child labor on the island, a reality that “even if you do not want to pronounce much aloud, it exists.”
A state report Newspaper26in the Las Tunas province, Children Make maromas to guarantee the basics. ”
In that sense, the report exposes the story of Paul, a 16 -year -old teenager who works the coal and is the main livelihood of his home.
“Since he opened his eyes, he learned the trade. His grandfather was coal to the entrails. In the heat of the ovens, he understood that mathematics did not enter him and that the only way” to have ‘3 kilos’ was to break the spine under the sun, “says the newspaper.
“He has become the man in the house. He puts the furnaces; it is the watchman ‘when the plague seems to eat anyone alive.’ He never appears to be tired. He does not want to buy shoes or phones. ‘He lies with the chickens’ and is always very serious. He says his uncle who has the look of an old man.”
The existence of this phenomenon in Cuban society is not something new, although in recent years it has reached greater visibility and boom. In fact, the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó, warned about the subject in the summary of the comprehensive visit of the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, to Las Tunas, in December of 2024.
Given the problem, the response of the Cuban regime has been to create “a multisectoral commission” whose objectives, activities or plans have not been detailed. Waiting for results, the truth is that the code in force in Cuba establishes 17 years as the age of labor initiation, according to Miguel González Velázquez, director of Labor and Social Security in the province.
He Newspaper26 The story recounts another 16 -year -old who calls Cristian, who cuts herb in the pastures for sale, an activity that even performs with the school uniform.
“The income he collects in the camouflage wallet is for a music is. In that way he managed to buy shoes, jackets …, and share with his dad the daily loot,” the text points out.
According to testimonies collected by primary school teachers, there are children who are dedicated to selling conferes in classrooms, and some confessed that after leaving school sells bread in their neighborhood.
For his part, Juan Migüel Barrios, deputy general director of the Directorate of Education in the province, affirms that addressing this issue “does not mean that there is a crisis in this regard.”
“If they asked me if cases of children associated with this scourge have been identified in the tunas, I would respond affirmatively (…) we have identified some minors interferent in the cutting of grass in certain places for someone to sell it later and thus obtain income. We also detect others linked to actors that sell products, especially agricultural, on the street,” explains the manager.
Child labor, however, is not only reduced to a specific sector. This is demonstrated by Dany’s case, a third child presented in the report who sells products acquired abroad by a neighbor.
“He has orders of cables, loaders, micas, covers … his phone does not stop.
Daisy Torres Álvarez, Chief Prosecutor of the Department of Family Protection and Jurisdictional Affairs, warned that in case of Dany, parents must understand that Your children are being exposed To be scammed, attacked, to deal with unscrupulous people.
“Teenagers are not suitable for these situations, or mentally. Then they regret the unpleasant incidents, but you have to start with prevention,” he said.
The Constitution on the island, in its article 66, prohibits the work of girls, boys and adolescents. And in the case that an accounting account informally hires a minor is committing a crime, explains the expert.
“This should not happen, although we know that there are those who undergo adolescents, taking advantage of the circumstances and their same economic situation, to link them. But they do not even sign an official document, because they consciously know that in Cuba child labor is prohibited,” adds the expert.
Cuban currently, children and adolescents are victims of the need that is imposed, changing the children’s games at an early age for work instruments. Although Cuba professes to be a nation where there is no child labor, there are entrenched evils that the “revolution” fails to control.
