Commentary
Cuba has long been a hotbed of human rights abuses. The United States has finally started to take notice.
Last month, U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.)
sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with a list of more than 100 Cuban government officials linked to human rights abuses and complicity in the dictatorship’s trafficking of people, including children. He requested their immediate investigation and deportation from the United States for representing a danger to Cuban exiles and the U.S immigration system. This is not just a Cuban problem anymore. Many of the same officials now live right here in the United States, enjoying the freedom and security they denied so many others. They were directly involved in building a system that profits from abusing children and quietly retired in the United States. Now they must be brought to justice.
For decades, the Cuban government has used legal loopholes and the tourism industry to profit off the exploitation of children. Although sex trafficking is a rampant problem in the country, the most recent
update to the official Penal Code includes loopholes that tacitly legitimize relationships with minors between 12 and 16 years old. More than a legislative failure, this is the logical outcome of an ideology that sees the family as a threat to state control and profits from the exploitation of Cuban children.
The current legal system is very lenient toward sexual offenses. Cuba’s Penal Code,
updated in 2022, officially sets the age of consent at 16, but it criminalizes sex with minors 12 to 16 only if coercion, abuse of authority, or deception is involved (
Articles 305 and 310). If these are not present, the act may not be prosecuted at all unless a guardian files a complaint. This means sex with minors as young as 12 is criminalized only in certain cases.
This lack of automatic prosecution for sexual activity involving 12- to 15 year-olds means adults can engage in these relationships, and the minors are often considered “consenting,” and even if a person is convicted of sexual abuse against a minor, he or she faces only three months to one year of imprisonment. Such minimal penalties fail to serve as a deterrent and reflect a complete disregard for the severity of these crimes.
Some of the officials now facing deportation to Cuba have been directly involved in perpetuating this system of exploitation. The combination of lax penalties for sexual abuses, an authoritarian government, and a tourist-centric economy makes Cuba a hotbed for corruption and abuse. These are the same officials now building new lives in the United States, blending in as if nothing ever happened while their victims are still paying the price. They were not just passive bureaucrats, but instead helped create and enforce the policies that allowed child trafficking for the sake of tourism.
Growing up in Cuba, I got used to seeing minor classmates and friends spending time with older foreign tourists as a quick way to make money. It’s common knowledge in Cuba that establishments run by the government—hotels, restaurants, and places of entertainment—will turn a blind eye if you bribe someone or buy their products, making tourist attractions prime locations for illicit exchanges between tourists and Cuban minors.
There are an estimated
89,000 prostitutes in Cuba, many of whom are minor boys and girls who have been made available for tourists. Cuban authorities admit that people ages 13–20 are the most vulnerable to human trafficking in the country, yet in 2014, there were only
18 convictions for sex trafficking, followed by 17 in 2020, 10 in 2021 and just six in 2022. Although the government
claims that “under no circumstances“ does it ”organize any type of sex tourism,” the weak laws and legal loopholes show that these condemnations of prostitution are hypocritical. The minimal convictions by authorities show the complicity of government officials in letting these crimes go unpunished.
The Penal Code points to the normalization of child exploitation to attract sex tourists seeking destinations with less legal restriction. These actions are also in line with the dictatorship’s pattern of implementing policies that weaken the family structure by encouraging abortion, facilitating divorce, and pushing state authority over parental rights. This is the outcome of authoritarian leadership: Politicians and powerful men profit off the exploitation of children while parents and families are pressured to comply.
