On June 24, the U.S. State Department released its 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report on human trafficking, whose “severe forms” are defined in the U.S. Trafficking Victims Proetection Act (TVPA) 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.”[1]
U.S. Secretary of State’s Comments
U.S. Seretary of State Antony J. Blinken opened the State Department’s session with the following message:
- “Human trafficking is a stain on the conscience of our society. It fuels crime, corruption, and violence. It distorts our economies and harms our workers. And it violates the fundamental right of all people to be free.”
- “Around the globe, an estimated 27 million people are exploited for labor, services, and commercial sex. Through force, fraud, and coercion, they are made to toil in fields and factories, in restaurants and residences. Traffickers prey on some of the world’s most marginalized and vulnerable individuals – profiting from their plight.”
- “The State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report provides the world’s most comprehensive assessment of this abhorrent practice, as well as efforts by governments and stakeholders around the globe to combat it. By measuring progress in 188 countries – including the United States – we are advancing President Biden’s commitment to prevent trafficking, prosecute perpetrators, and protect survivors.”
- “Even as this resource covers long-standing forms and methods of trafficking, it also examines the growing role of technology in both facilitating exploitation and countering it.”
- “Digital tools have amplified the reach, scale, and speed of trafficking. Perpetrators use dating apps and online ads to recruit victims. They use online platforms to sell illicit sexual content. They leverage encrypted messaging and digital currencies to evade detection.”
- “At the same time, technology is also one of our most powerful tools to combat this enduring scourge. Mobile phones, social media platforms, and artificial intelligence make it possible for advocates and law enforcement to raise greater awareness about the rights of workers and migrants, locate victims and perpetrators of online sexual exploitation, and analyze large amounts of data to detect emerging human trafficking trends.”
- “As technology makes it easier for traffickers to operate across geographies and jurisdictions, those of us committed to rooting out this horrendous crime – in government, businesses, civil society – can and must work together and coordinate our efforts.”
U.S. Ambassador at Large’s Comments
Cindy Dyer, the U.S. Ambassor at Large, added comments about this report that focused on the importance of partners (survivors, other governments and non-governmental agencies) in combatting this trafficking.
Ranking of Countries
The report ranked all countries of the world into the following tiers:
- “Tier 1 Countries whose governments fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.” (30 countries, including the U.S.)
- “Tier 2 Countries whose governments do not fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.” (105 countries)
- “Tier 2 Watch List. Countries whose governments do not fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards, and for which:the estimated number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing and the country is not taking proportional concrete actions; or there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year, including increased investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of trafficking crimes, increased assistance to victims, and decreasing evidence of complicity in severe forms of trafficking by government officials.” (26 countries)
- “Tier 3. Countries whose governments do not fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.” In addition, “The TVPA, as amended, lists additional factors to determine whether a country should be on Tier 2 (or Tier 2 Watch List) versus Tier 3: the extent to which the country is a country of origin, transit, or destination for severe forms of trafficking; the extent to which the country’s government does not meet the TVPA’s minimum standards and, in particular, the extent to which officials or government employees have been complicit in severe forms of trafficking; reasonable measures that the government would need to undertake to be in compliance with the minimum standards in light of the government’s resources and capabilities to address and eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons; the extent to which the government is devoting sufficient budgetary resources to investigate and prosecute human trafficking, convict and sentence traffickers; and obtain restitution for victims of human trafficking; and the extent to which the government is devoting sufficient budgetary resources to protect victims and prevent the crime from occurring.” (24 countries, including Cuba. The other countries so ranked are Afghanistan, Algeria, Belarus, Burma, Cambodia, Chad, China (People’s Republic of), Curacao, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Iran, Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of ), Macau, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Sint Maarten, South Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.)
Report’s Comments on Cuba
In the section entitled “Topics of Special Interest” the report discussed “Human Trafficking in Cuba’s Labor Export Program.” Here is what it said:
“Each year, the Cuban government sends tens of thousands of workers around the globe under multi-year cooperation agreements negotiated with receiving countries. While medical missions remain the most prevalent, the Cuban government also 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 worldwide. According to a report published by the Cuban government, by the end of 2023, there were more than 22,000 government-affiliated Cuban workers in over 53 countries, and medical professionals composed 75 percent of its exported workforce. The COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for medical workers in many places around the world, and the Cuban government used the opportunity to expand its reach by increasing the number of its medical personnel abroad through the Henry Reeve Brigades, which Cuba first initiated in 2005 to respond to natural disasters and epidemics. Experts estimate the Cuban government collects $6 billion to $8 billion annually from its export of services, which includes the medical missions. The labor export program remains the largest foreign revenue source for the Cuban government.”
“There are serious concerns with Cuba’s recruitment and retention practices surrounding the labor export program. While the conditions of each international labor mission vary from country to country, the Cuban government subjects all government-affiliated workers to the same coercive laws. Cuba has a government policy or pattern to profit from forced labor in the labor export program, which includes foreign medical missions. The Cuban government labels workers who leave the program without completing it 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 families in Cuba. It 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 they left behind. These government policies and legal provisions, taken together, coerce workers and punish those seeking to exercise freedom of movement. According to credible sources, by 2021, the Cuban government had sanctioned 40,000 professionals under these provisions, and by 2022, there were approximately 5,000 children forcibly separated from their parents due to the government’s policies surrounding the program.”
“Complaints filed with the International Criminal Court and the UN indicate most workers did not volunteer for the program, some never saw a contract or knew their destination, many had their passports confiscated by Cuban officials once they arrived at their destination, and almost all had “minders” or overseers. According to the complaints and survivors, Cuban heads of mission in the country subjected workers to surveillance, prevented them from freely associating with locals, and imposed a strict curfew. Cuba also confiscated between 75 and 90 percent of each worker’s salary. As a result of the well-founded complaints and information about the exploitative nature of Cuba’s labor export program, at the end of 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur for Contemporary Forms of Slavery filed a new communication outlining the persistent concerns with the program, particularly for Cuban workers in Italy, Qatar, and Spain.”
“While exploitation, including forced labor, of workers remains the primary concern with the program, Cuba’s practices can also negatively impact a host country’s healthcare system. Survivors of the program have reported being forced by the Cuban in-country mission director to falsify medical records and misrepresent critical information to justify their presence and need to local authorities. Some individuals reported discarding medications, fabricating names, and documenting medical procedures that never occurred. When medical workers refused to comply with the demands of the Cuban in-country mission director, they faced punishment and retaliation. While the Cuban government promotes workers as highly skilled medical professionals and specialists, these workers often lack adequate medical training to treat complex conditions. These practices are unethical, negligent, exploitative, and risk the lives of those they serve.”
“Governments should make efforts to combat human trafficking, and this includes not purchasing goods or services made or provided with forced labor. Governments that utilize Cuba’s labor export programs despite the serious concerns with the program should at a minimum conduct frequent and unannounced labor inspections to screen these workers for trafficking indicators and employ victim-centered interviewing techniques. These host governments should ensure all Cuban workers are subject to the same laws, regulations, and protections as for other migrant workers and that they are not brought via a negotiated agreement with the Government of Cuba that limits these protections or exempts Cuban workers from Wage Protections Systems or other tools designed to strengthen transparency. Officials should ensure workers maintain complete control of their passports and medical certifications and can provide proof of full salary payment to bank accounts under the workers’ control. They should scrutinize medical reports produced by these workers, offer protection for those who face retaliation and punishment for terminating their employment, and raise awareness of trafficking risks for all foreign workers, including government-affiliated Cuban workers.”
Cuba’s Comments on This Report[2]
On June 24, Granma (the official voice of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba) said, “[A lier is] the neighboring government, that one to the north of the archipelago, which, like the naked king in a children’s story, displays its falsehoods about Cuba, without realizing that its shame is in the air; so arrogant is its arrogance.The current U.S. administration arbitrarily insists on keeping Cuba in the worst category (level 3) in its recently published annual State Department report on human trafficking. The actions of the Washington authorities, marked by political motivations, deserved the response, from . . . the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez [who said]:
“The empire has once again listed Cuba in its manipulative report on human trafficking, an outrageous maneuver in the open war against Cuban medical collaboration. Enough cynicism, Secretary Blinken. You are well aware of our zero-tolerance policy for this criminal practice. To justify the action, the report referred to the year 2023 uses contradictory arguments, based on the defamation of the work of Cuban medical collaboration in more than a hundred countries. Cuba’s cooperation with other peoples in the field of health is so humane that they have to attack it. It bothers them that, in the midst of the lordship of perversity and dishonor with which they pretend to dominate the world, the unsubmissive island brings light to the darkness and health to those who suffer.”
“But it is not fortuitous to include Cuba in spurious lists, to consider the island in the worst category in its report on human trafficking allows the White House to justify the blockade and the endless saga of coercive measures aimed at starving its people.”
“It would seem that the world is upside down: those who promote human trafficking, encouraging illegal departures, those who hinder the normal migratory flow between the two nations, are the ones who judge and punish.”
“Those who do not allow – to cite just one example – our baseball players to benefit from an agreement that prevents them from falling into the arms of human traffickers to reach the MLB, are the same ones who seek to condemn those who maintain a zero tolerance policy against human trafficking.”
Conclusion
This is a very complicated report, and the State Department website says, “This posted version is not fully accessible, meaning it may be inaccessible or incompatible with assistive technology. An accessible version will be posted as soon as the ongoing updates are concluded.” (Thus, there may be errors in this post and readers are invited to note any such corrections.)
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[1]U.S. State Dep’t, 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report (June 2024); The US considers that the regime ‘is not making significant efforts’ to combat human trafficking, Diario de Cuba (June 24, 2024).
[2] Capote, Accusing Cuba of human trafficking, another ruse to justify economic warfare, Granma (June 26, 2024).