HRF Report: Sex Trafficking in Cuba

For years, the Cuban regime has failed to comply with its international law obligations aimed at protecting victims of human trafficking. While the international community has become increasingly aware of forced labor in Cuba’s state-run medical missions, as a form of human trafficking, less is known about another form of human trafficking pervasive in the island — sex trafficking. Cuba is a source country for victims of sex trafficking, particularly women and girls, who are vulnerable to gender-based violence situations that lead to sex trafficking. The country’s sex tourism industry and unsafe migration conditions have become fertile ground for sex trafficking. The country’s sex tourism industry and unsafe migration conditions have become fertile ground for sex trafficking. Critically, the authoritarian nature of Cuba’s regime creates perverse incentives that make it difficult to address these crimes. The Cuban regime has an incentive to minimize and/or under- report sex trafficking cases because of the negative impact on the government’s international image and the island’s tourism industry, which represents a major source of government revenue. The systematic suppression of freedom of speech and association in Cuba, evident in the lack of independent organizations capable of corroborating the regime’s anti-trafficking efforts, creates added obstacles toward assessing the accuracy of the regime’s sex trafficking response