On April 3, 2024, the U.S. State Department’s Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons published its critical report on Cuba’s Labor Export Program.[1]
U.S. Summary of Cuban Labor Export Program[2]
“Each year, the Cuban government sends tens of thousands of workers around the globe under multi-year cooperation agreements negotiated with receiving countries. According to reporting from the Cuban government, there were roughly 28,000 workers in over 60 countries by the end of 2021. The greatest number of Cuban workers in foreign countries are medical professionals. The COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for medical workers in many places around the world, and the Cuban government helped fill the gap by increasing the number of its medical workers abroad, including through the use of its Henry Reeve Brigade, which Cuba first initiated in 2005 to respond to natural disasters and epidemics. There are serious concerns with Cuba’s recruitment and retention practices surrounding this program, exacerbating workers’ vulnerability to being subject to forced labor. In the 2023 TIP report, the Department carefully documented government-affiliated Cuban workers’ current or recent presence in 56 countries around the world. According to the Cuban government, medical professionals compose 75 percent of its exported workforce. Experts estimate the Cuban government collects $6 billion to $8 billion annually from its export of services, principally the foreign medical missions’ program.”
“The conditions of each medical mission vary from country to country. However, in 2021, 1,111 former participants filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court and the UN, claiming the Cuban government exploited them and forced them to work in the labor export program. The complaint stated 75 percent of these participants did not volunteer for the program, 33 percent never saw a contract, 69 percent did not know their final destination, 38 percent had their passport confiscated by Cuban officials once they arrived at their destination, 76 percent had “minders” and were subjected to surveillance, 76 percent could not freely associate with locals, 79 percent had restrictions on their movement, 91 percent were told they could not return to Cuba if they defected, 75 percent suffered threats or witnessed coworkers being threatened, and 40 percent were separated from their children as punishment for defecting. Many medical professionals reported being sexually abused by their Cuban government supervisors. While the medical missions remain the most prevalent, the government profited from other similarly coercive labor export programs, including those involving teachers, artists, athletes and coaches, engineers, forestry technicians, and nearly 7,000 merchant mariners across the world.”[3]
“The Cuban Ministry of Interior labels workers who do not return to the island upon completing their assignment as “deserters,” a category that under Cuban immigration law deems them as “undesirable.” The government bans workers labeled as “deserters” and “undesirables” from returning to Cuba for eight years, preventing them from visiting their family in Cuba. In addition, the government categorizes Cuban nationals who do not return to the country within 24 months as having “emigrated.” Individuals who emigrate lose all their citizen protections, rights under Cuban law, and any property left behind. These government policies and legal provisions, taken together, coerce workers and punish those seeking to exercise freedom of movement. A report published by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child noted concern over Cuba’s policy to prohibit parents who terminated a civilian contract abroad from reuniting with their children. According to an international NGO, by 2021, the Cuban government had sanctioned 40,000 professionals under these provisions, and in 2022, there were approximately 5,000 children forcibly separated from their parents due to the government’s policies surrounding the program.”
U.S. Recommendations to Cuban Government [4]
This U.S. report made the following recommendations about this program to the Cuban government:
- “Remove existing protocols used by the Ministry of Interior punishing and labeling medical workers who terminate their employment in foreign countries as “deserters.”
- Revise Cuban immigration law currently labeling and punishing those who don’t return to Cuba after departing an international mission as “undesirable.”
- Cease banning workers labeled as “deserters” or “undesirable” from returning to Cuba.
- Allow former participants who terminate their employment to return to Cuba without punishment or retribution.
- Allow workers to review proposed employment contracts with a reasonable time to consider the agreement.
- Compensate workers fairly and similarly to other foreign workers in their country of destination.
- Allow government-affiliated workers to befriend locals and move freely without supervision.
- Cease the separation of families as punishment for terminating civilian contracts abroad.
- Allow workers complete control of their personal passport and professional certifications.”
Reactions
On April 3, 2024, “Three Cuban-American congressmen announced . . . a series of measures that seek to prohibit . . . the granting of visas to anyone involved in “the exploitation of Cuban doctors.”[5]
The U.S. previously has made similar criticisms of the Cuban Labor Export Program, all to no avail.[6]
Although Cuba has an obvious economic incentive for its Labor Export Program, especially in its current economic problems, the above criticisms of the Program are justified and Cuba should end same.
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[1] State Dep’t, Trafficking in Persons and Cuba’s Labor Export Program (April 3, 2024).
[2] The State Department report also summarized a 2021 complaint by 1,111 former participants about this Cuba program with the International Criminal Court and the U.N., but did not discuss what happened with this complaint.
[3] The International Criminal Court apparently has made no decision on this complaint, presumably because its jurisdiction is limited to crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity (large scale attacks against a civilian population involving murder, rape, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, enslavement, sexual slavery, torture, apartheid and deportation), grave breaches of the Geneva conventions on armed conflict and armed aggression. (Iint’l Crim. Ct., The Crimes.
[4] The State Department report also made recommendations to workers in the Cuba program and to governments hosting such workers.
[5] The US will not give visas to officials involved in the trafficking of exported Cuban doctors, Diario de Cuba (April 3, 2024),
[6] Here are some of the previous dwkcommentaries posts on this subject: U.S. Accuses Cuba of Being a State Sponsor of Trafficking in Persons (Jan. 18, 2018), Cuba Remains on “Tier 2-Watch List” in U.S. State Department’s Annual Trafficking in Persons Report (July 1, 2018); State Department Unjustly Downgrades Cuba in Annual Report on Human Trafficking (June 22, 2019); U.S. Unjustified Campaign To Discredit Cuba’s Foreign Medical Mission Program (Sept. 4, 2019); U.S. Litigation Over Cuba Medical Mission Program (Feb. 12, 2020), U.S. State Department’s Latest Report on Cuban Human Rights (April 15, 2022); U.S. Accuses Cuba of Being a Sponsor of Trafficking in Persons (Jan. 18, 2024),
