Cuba Remains on “Tier 2—Watch List” in U.S. State Department’s Annual Trafficking in Persons Report   

On June 28 the U.S. State Department released its Trafficking in Persons Report (June 2018), [1] pursuant to a U.S. federal statute (The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, as amended), requiring annual reports on human trafficking in every country of the world. After looking at the background for this report, we will examine its report on Cuba.

Background

This statute defines “severe forms of trafficking in persons” as “sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or  the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.” (Report at 5.)

This statute also defines the “minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons” as follows:

• “(1) The government of the country should prohibit severe forms of trafficking in persons and punish acts of such trafficking. (2) For the knowing commission of any act of sex trafficking involving force, fraud, coercion, or in which the victim of sex trafficking is a child incapable of giving meaningful consent, or of trafficking which includes rape or kidnapping or which causes a death, the government of the country should prescribe punishment commensurate with that for grave crimes, such as forcible sexual assault. (3) For the knowing commission of any act of a severe form of trafficking in persons, the government of the country should prescribe punishment that is sufficiently stringent to deter and that adequately reflects the heinous nature of the offense. (4) The government of the country should make serious and sustained efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons.” (Report at 44.)

The statute then goes on with great details on 12 Indicia of “Serious and Sustained Efforts” as used in the last of these four minimum standards. (Report at 44-45.)

The report placed the countries in the world into the following five tiers or categories (Report at 54):

Report on Cuba

Cuba remained on Tier 2 Watch List for the fourth consecutive year after four years in Tier 3.[2] Its introductory paragraph stated the following:

 “The Government of Cuba does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated significant efforts by prosecuting and convicting more traffickers, including a trafficker that subjected a boy to forced begging; creating a directorate to provide specialized attention to child victims of crime and violence, including trafficking; and publishing its national anti-trafficking plan for 2017-2020. However, the government did not demonstrate increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period. The government did not criminalize most forms of forced labor, or sex trafficking of children ages 16 and 17, and did not report providing specialized services to identified victims. The government lacked procedures to proactively identify forced labor victims and detained potential sex trafficking victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being subjected to trafficking. Because the government has devoted sufficient resources to a written plan, that, if implemented, would constitute significant efforts to meet the minimum standards, Cuba was granted a waiver per the Trafficking Victims Protection Act from an otherwise required downgrade to Tier 3.” (Report at 156 (emphasis added.)[3]

The Report also provided the following “RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CUBA”

“Draft and enact a comprehensive anti-trafficking law that prohibits and sufficiently punishes all forms of human trafficking, including forced labor, sex trafficking of children ages 16 and 17, and the full range of trafficking ‘acts’ (recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving persons); vigorously investigate and prosecute both sex trafficking and forced labor offenses; implement formal policies and procedures on the identification of all trafficking victims and their referral to appropriate services, and train officials, including first responders, in their use; adopt policies and programs that provide trafficking-specific, specialized assistance for male and female trafficking victims, including measures to ensure identified sex and labor trafficking victims are not punished for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being subjected to sex trafficking or forced labor; establish a permanent inter-ministerial anti-trafficking committee and implement the 2017-2020 national anti-trafficking action plan in partnership with international organizations; implement policies to prohibit force, fraud, or coercion by foreign labor recruiters and state-owned or controlled enterprises in recruiting and retaining employees; educate workers about trafficking indicators and where to report trafficking-related violations; and provide specialized training on trafficking indicators for hotline staff and interpretation for non-Spanish speakers.” (Report at 158.)

The Report’s conclusion on Cuba under the heading “Trafficking Profile” states as follows:

“As reported over the past five years, Cuba is a source, transit, and destination country for adults and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. Sex trafficking and sex tourism, including child victims, occur within Cuba. Traffickers subject Cuban citizens to sex trafficking and forced labor in South America, the Caribbean, and the United States. Traffickers subject foreign nationals from Africa and Asia to sex trafficking and forced labor in Cuba to pay off travel debts. The government is the primary employer in the Cuban economy, including in foreign medical and other overseas missions that employ more than 84,000 workers in more than 67 countries, including Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. These medical missions constitute a significant source of Cuban government income. Some participants in foreign medical missions as well as other sources allege that Cuban officials force or coerce participation in the program; the government has stated the postings are voluntary, and some participants also have stated the postings are voluntary and well-paid compared to jobs within Cuba. The Cuban government acknowledges that it withholds passports of overseas medical personnel in Venezuela; the government provided ID cards to such personnel in place of passports. There are also claims about substandard working and living conditions in some countries. Observers noted Cuban authorities coerced some participants to remain in the program, including by allegedly withholding their passports, restricting their movement, using “minders” to monitor participants outside of work, threatening to revoke their medical licenses, retaliate against their family members in Cuba if participants leave the program, or impose exile if participants didn’t return to Cuba as directed by government supervisors. The government uses some high school students in rural areas to harvest crops and does not pay them for their work but claims this work is not coerced.” (Report at 158 (emphasis added.)

The portion of this Profile about Cuba’s foreign medical missions’ alleged use of forced labor is highlighted because, as discussed below, this blogger believes such allegation is erroneous.

Conclusion

There are at least two major objections to this report on Cuba.

First, there is no mention of  the bilateral U.S.-Cuba discussions about human trafficking that have occurred since the December 17, 2014, announcement of U.S.-Cuba rapprochement. Unfortunately the brief official announcements of such discussions do not provide details of the substance of the discussions.[4] But such discussions may bear light on the U.S. report about Cuba.

Second, there also is no merit to the Report’s allegation that Cuba’s employment of Cuban medical personnel in foreign missions is  illegal forced labor. Details are provided in a prior post, but here is a summary for that conclusion:

• There is conflicting evidence on the coercion issue and there has been no adjudication of that issue.
• International medical aid has been a significant part of the Cuban people’s tradition of solidarity, and some Cuban medical personnel have said that such service had a major positive impact on their lives and medical careers.
• A detailed study by Indiana State University’s Emeritus Professor of International Politics and Latin America, Dr. H. Michael Erisman, rejects the accusation of forced labor.
• Medical education in Cuba is free and requiring medical graduates to pay the country back by such participation seems entirely appropriate and may indeed be a contractual or quasi-contractual obligation.
• Having Cuban medical personnel participate in foreign medical mission does not violate the relevant international legal standard (the Forced Labour Convention, 1930) because it expressly excludes “any work or service which forms part of the normal civic obligation of the citizens of a fully self-governing country.”

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[1] U.S. State Dep’t, Trafficking in Persons Report: June 2018.  At the State Department’s Launch Ceremony public comments were made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kari Johnstone, the acting director for the Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons plus 10 TIP Heroes from around the world. Earlier there was a background briefing for journalists. (See U.S. State Dep’t, Remarks at the 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report Launch Ceremony (June 28, 2018) ; U.S. State Dep’t, Senior State Department Official on the 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report (June 28, 2018).

[2] Some of the prior reports about trafficking in Cuba are discussed in the following posts to dwkcommentariess.com: U.S. Upgrades Cuba in State Department’s Annual Report on Human Trafficking (Aug. 7, 2015); Comment: Cuba’s International Medical Mission Doctors’ Reflections (Nov. 30, 2015); U.S. State Department’s 2015 Human Trafficking Report’s Objectivity About Cuba Is Still Unresolved (Nov. 16, 2015); U.S. Reasserts Upgrade of Cuba in Annual Human Trafficking Report (July 2, 2016); U.S. Senate Hearing on 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report (July 20, 2016); Cuba’s Unchanged Status in U.S. State Department’s Annual Report on Human Trafficking (Aug. 13, 2017).

[3] The Report provides greater details on Cuba’s Prosecution, Protection and Prevention. (Report at 156-58.)

[4]  See these posts to dwkcommentaries.com about such mentions of bilateral discussions about human trafficking: This Week’s U.S.-Cuba Meetings in Havana (Jan. 18, 2015); U.S.-Cuba Bilateral Commission Sets Agenda for Future Discussions of Remaining Issues (Sept. 12, 2015); Results of Second Meeting of U.S.-Cuba Bilateral Commission (Nov. 11, 2015); United States-Cuba Bilateral Commission Meets To  Review Normalization Status (May 18, 2016); U.S. and Cuba Hold Another Meeting of the Bilateral Commission (Sept. 30, 2016); U.S. and Cuba Continue To Implement Normalization of Relations (Jan. 17, 2017); U.S. and Cuba Hold Biannual Migration Talks (Dec. 12, 2017); U.S. and Cuba Hold Discussions About Human Trafficking and Migration Fraud (Dec. 15, 2017); U.S. and Cuba Continue To Confer Over Common Concerns (Feb. 2, 2018).