Prostitution and Sex Tourism in Cuba Robbie Bisconti Topaz 11/25/13 3 to 4 hours
Countries disdain Cuba because of their lack of laws and non-compliance for the global minimum standards of eradicating and preventing prostitution and sex trafficking with children and adults alike. Cuba is a Tier 3 country in human trafficking, which means that the government makes a minimal effort to deal with prostitution and trafficking. In Cuba, the prostitution of children under the age of 16 is illegal, but there are currently no laws preventing prostitution for women above that age, though laws are in place to prevent the streetwalking of prostitutes. One main income sources for prostitutes are tourists. Since streetwalking is illegal, the prostitutes approach tourists, asking if they want a drink, with unspoken implications of paid sex. Most prostitutes seek out tourists with the hope that they can form some sort of relationship, which could lead to an escape from the country.
Cuba, along with high human trafficking stats and tightly restricted media exposure, has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Cuba provides free healthcare and treatment for all of their citizens as well as some of the best doctors, most from their own medical schools. The Cuban healthcare system has highly evolved since the 1800’s and early 20th century, especially after the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s. Under the new laws of Fidel Castro, many new women were incorporated into the Cuban workforce, but still, some women can’t get jobs and turn to prostitution. The new laws brought better women’s rights, including slightly tighter regulation on prostitution (undoubtedly not nearly enough to be close to eliminating it from the country) and a better healthcare system. This well-rounded healthcare system may have an impact on the low diagnosis prevalence of HIV, which is one of the lowest in the world at only 0.05%. The good, early-on sex education by the government and local health clinics have large impacts on sex workers, surveys in 2009 showing that 77% of all sex workers say they use condoms regularly. And as well as good education of STDs, the government has been supporting women’s choice to abort a child if they were to become pregnant since the 1950s, the National Commission for Family Planning clearly states, “Cuba accepts and supports since 1959, the sovereign right of women and their partners to freely decide their reproduction issues. The State guarantees, through our health system, the necessary attention before and after birth, in cases of infertility or when birth is not desired. In such cases, the State guarantees the right to decide, allowing recourse to contraceptives. Similarly, the right to abort is the right of women and their partners, and that is why they are offered this institutional service with a high level of medical safety.”
Cuba was always, and currently is, a country with many human rights problems, some of which being censorship, political dissents, legality of crimes, human trafficking, and many more. One of the greatest human rights problems in Cuba is the network or censorship that the government has for all branches of media: television, Internet, telephones, and news: broadcast and print. In certain cases, the government has been known to filter personal mail. Television and Internet access has been one of the biggest disputes among Cuban citizens, especially some Cuban journalists and bloggers. One blogger, named Yoani Sanchez, who sometimes has rare access to unfiltered Cuban blogs –such as her own –, has described the feeling like “being one of the few who remain awake in a land of sleepwalkers”. In her blog post from July 2008, titled “Sleepwalking Through History, Officially Newsless In Cuba”, Sanchez talks about the lengths that some Cubans go to get current global news, all of which are illegal by the laws of state. Some people have black-market satellites that pick up broadcasting from places like Mexico and Florida, one of Sanchez’s friends tapes recordings of TV and sells them for money, allowing her to live without an official job. While just this year, over 200 Internet cafes have opened up all of over the country, many people cannot pay for the slow and censored internet because access can cost them $5 an hour – about a fourth of an average Cuban’s monthly salary at most. Many journalists and politicians have made pleads and threats to the Cuban government, urging them to loosen their rules on media censorship, but to no avail. Citizens of Cuba are upset with the level of excessiveness that President Raúl Castro’s regime has with not only censorship, but the oppression of dissent as well. Castro refuses to change the laws because he fears that he will loose control of his people if they see how bad their conditions are compared to other countries, and that the citizens will riot or leave the country.
Works Cited Celaya, Miriam, trans. "Between Neglect and Helplessness. Prostitution in Cuba, Part 3 / Miriam Celaya." Translating Cuba. N.p., 16 Sept. 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.