MIAMI, United States. – The United States Government maintains Cuba on its list of countries that do not do enough to stop human trafficking, the US State Department announced Thursday, when it made public your annual human trafficking report.
Said list also includes Venezuela, Nicaragua, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Algeria, Chad, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea and Papua New Guinea.
“The United States is committed to the fight against human trafficking because it represents an attack on human rights and freedoms,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned when presenting the report.
According to the US Government, Cuba does not meet the minimum standards in the fight against human trafficking. Although the report presented by Washington admits that the island’s regime “took some steps to address trafficking,” such as approving a new Penal Codeconsiders that the calls “Cuban medical missions” abroad are an obvious case of forced labor.
The island’s regime charges billions for the work of doctors abroad, which has been denounced before international organizations as “labour exploitation.”
As part of the program More Doctors, Havana agreed in 2012 to send specialists from the Health sector to Brazil. Thanks to the agreement between the governments of Cuba and the South American giant, the island’s regime received 85 percent of the money paid by Brazil to doctors, who only received 10 percent of their salary, according to Reuters.
Regarding the regime of Nicolás Maduro, the report presented by Washington this Thursday indicates that “it is not making any effort” against trafficking. In addition, he accuses him of supporting armed groups that recruit children for forced labor and sex trafficking.
According to the US, some 27 million people in the world are victims of human trafficking and forced labor, a phenomenon that especially impacts women, people from the LGBTIQ community, and ethnic and religious minorities.
