June 27, 2003

Cuba: Pimping Children for Cash

fidel.jpg
State Department Report on "Trafficking." Scroll down.

During a long evening of poker at a friend's apartment in New York in the late 1990s, one man who attended and who had far too much bourbon regaled us with tales of his recent trip to Havana. 'You can have two sisters as your sex slaves and housekeepers for a week for the price of one night in a Holiday Inn in Boise,' he claimed. I replied that it didn't seem like the kind of vacation I'd enjoy and besides it struck me that, in a country like Cuba, you could find yourself in a jail pretty quick if the government caught you.

"The government?," he replied. "Hell, the government will pick you up and drop you off at the apartment. How do you think they get any money at all on that island? The '56 Chevy is the car of choice and the dollar is the coin of the realm."

It is encouraging that our State Department is catching on to Castro's Ministry of Pimping at last. But it is equally discouraging to note that Cuba's need for cash has driven it to the Bangkok solution of offering its children for sale to perverts with global reach.

Still, this revelation of Cuba's Child Sexploitation Policy is unlikely to stop numerous celebrated Americans from dashing off to Havana for a photo op with Fidel at every opportunity. Maybe they too agree with the new Cuban motto: "Cuba kids, si. Yankee kids, no."
The currrent US State Department evaluation of Cuba's sex trade reads:

Cuba is a country of internal trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Minors are victimized in sexual exploitation connected to the state-run tourism industry. Despite occasional measures by the Government of Cuba to crack down on prostitution, state-controlled tourism establishments and independent operators facilitate and even encourage the sexual exploitation of minors by foreign tourists. Government authorities turn a blind eye to this exploitation because such activity helps to win hard currency for state-run enterprises.

Posted by Vanderleun at June 27, 2003 6:33 AM
Bookmark and Share

Comments:

HOME

"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

This article is moronic. I hate the Cuban Govt and what is has done to its people. However, if you were speaking from first hand experience you would konw the government puts people in jail for having relations with minor children in Cuba. Furthermore, they harrass any cuban woman that is caught in the presence of a foreigner.

Posted by: Brad at October 16, 2003 8:23 PM