Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is seeking to use a politically biased evaluation system of sex-trafficking to pressure the Administration to retreat from its important, albeit bureaucratically constipated, opening of purposeful travel.

Ros-Lehtinen wrote Secretary of State Clinton, no doubt seeking to appeal to her well known concern for a pervasive international problem:

I would urge the administration, within all applicable rules and guidelines, to reverse its current policy and suspend all educational and cultural exchanges with the Cuban regime pursuant to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.

According to U.S. law, “countries on Tier 3 may not receive funding for government employees’ participation in educational and cultural exchange programs.”

The substance of Cuba’s ranking in the trafficking score card is about as real, and is as politically motivated, as the justification for keeping Cuba on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.  From the State Department report:

Cuba is a source country for adults and some children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. Some Cuban medical professionals assigned to work abroad have claimed that their passports were retained as a means of keeping them in a state of exploitation, thus preventing them from traveling freely.* … The scope of trafficking within Cuba is particularly difficult to gauge due to the closed nature of the government and sparse non-governmental or independent reporting…..

Cuba appears to prohibit most forms of trafficking activity through various provisions of its penal code; however, the use of these provisions could not be verified, and prostitution of children over the age of 16 is legal, leaving children over 16 particularly vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation. The government did not share official data relating to Cuban investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of trafficking offenders, including any officials complicit in human trafficking, in 2010 or any other year. The government did not report any anti-trafficking training provided to officials.

The government did not publicize official data on protection of trafficking victims during the reporting period. The government did not report any procedures in place to guide officials in proactively identifying trafficking victims in vulnerable groups (such as people in prostitution) and referring them to available services. The government operates at least two well-regarded facilities for the treatment of children who have been sexually and physically abused. In addition, the government operates a nationwide network of shelters for victims of domestic violence or child abuse, but the government did not verify if trafficking victims received treatment in these centers.

Cuba’s main problem seems to be that it does not check off the right bureaucratic boxes, probably because as noted in the report, "Cuba is not a party to the 2000 UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol." 

There is of course  prostitution in Cuba, as in the US and every other country of the world. Paid for sex is particularly tempting and unfortunate when relatively well off foreigners interact freely with a population having limited incomes and access to consumer goods.

However, in Cuba this does not appear to be a problem of trafficking so much as a manifestation of one of the world’s oldest forms of self-employment, usually on a part-time amateur basis.

Certain night clubs are known as meeting places between foreigners and jiniteras or jiniteros.  No more may be intended than a good time of flirting, dancing and listening to music while cadging drinks, but more intimate encounters are reported to develop, leading to one-night stands, holiday romances and sometimes long term relationships, including marriage.  

The involvement of the Cuban government seems limited to not blocking the meet-ups in  clubs and bars which are inevitably state owned.  Access to rooms in hotels by non-guests is tightly controlled so if sexual relations occur they are most likely within private homes and apartments.  This is not a new phenomena.  The term “bed and breakfast” is not used in Cuba as a translation for casas particulares because of sexual connotations that precede the revolution.

The government, pressed by the Women’s Federation, moved to restrict at least the locales and public visibility of where connections are made.  The first time I visited Varadero in the late 90s, I was surprised by the heated social scene at outdoor bars.  The situation seemed more family friendly in later visits.  According to the Federation, if women are detained, the first time they receive a warning, the second time their parents are sent a letter, and the third time they go to a rehabilitation center.

Contrast this with countries like Thailand, a close US ally in which a highly commercial sex industry with newspaper ads, touts on the street, professional prostitutes, massage parlors, wide open hotels plus ubiquitous self-employed hustlers is a very remunerative tourist attraction.  Yet Thailand is classified as Tier 2, a lesser level of US criticism.

Trafficking is a serious international problem, but politically biased categorizations in the annual State Department report do little more than satisfy US self-righteousness and political agendas.  It is notable that the only important US ally to be included among the 18 Tier 3 countries is Saudi Arabia.  US nemeses in addition to Cuba that make it onto the worst offenders’ list are Venezuela, Iran, Libya, Burma, Sudan and North Korea.

If you have the time, dip into the report.  Read the sections here on Cuba and Thailand, as well as on the US which is self evaluated in the most favorable Tier 1.  This benign characterization may come as a surprise to campaigners against sex trafficking in America, or after a casual look at escort service listings in the yellow pages and ads in entertainment newspapers in major cities, or, as CNN has reported, to readers of Craig’s List.   Ros-Lehtinen's district includes South Beach, almost as notorious for its strip of unabashed girlie bars and sex trade as Las Vegas.

Ros-Lehtinen tells Secretary Clinton:

According to U.S. law, “countries on Tier 3 may not receive funding for government employees’ participation in educational and cultural exchange programs.” Under the repressive Cuban regime, anyone who is involved in cultural and educational exchanges are direct employees of Raul and Fidel Castro. The tyrants use these exchanges as a political instrument to promote their communist agenda while maintaining absolute control over the daily lives of the Cuban people.

Last year, President Obama granted a partial waiver for Cuba to allow funding for educational and cultural exchanges

Is Ros-Lehtinen calling for similar action against Saudi Arabia and the other 16 countries?  Does she oppose tourism to Miami?

She mashes together her adamant opposition to purposeful travel with a hard to comprehend attack on the administration.  What funding of educational and cultural exchanges is she referring to?  USAID payments for Alan Gross’s unfortunate venture and other “democracy” projects?  Or does she mean the staff time of an overburdened OFAC for processing applications for specific licenses?  (That could be solved by the White House authorizing general licenses!)

The real motivation for Ros-Lehtinen is revealed by her own words.  She is not trying to block the insignificant amount of revenue Cuba will derive from educational and cultural travel.  Her fear is that thousands of average Americans and opinion leaders will discover for themselves that Cuba is a real country with good and bad aspects and that a US policy of economic warfare and political isolation dominated by a tiny minority of vengeful exiles benefits neither population.  From her viewpoint that is “their communist agenda”.  It is also the agenda of two-thirds of Americans.

At the moment Ros-Lehtinen is not following the legislative tactic of Mario Diaz-Balart’s appropriations amendment to reverse family travel (see my post here), but, left unchallenged, her goal of restoring Bush restrictions on educational and cultural travel will seek other more compulsory channels.

John McAuliff

Fund for Reconciliation and Development

* When I was in the Peace Corps in Cuzco, Peru, my passport was retained in the national office in Lima.  The Soviet Union was not even offering me free entry if I defected as the US shamefully still does for Cuban doctors and nurses, a policy initiated by Bush but maintained by Obama.

Links and resources

Travel becomes more possible

Insight Cuba finally received its people to people license and has posted a rich array of open enrollment trips here.

Witness for Peace also received a license and is offering trips here.

Study abroad staff and prospective faculty leaders of student trips are eligible under their school's general license for an orientation program in Cuba from July 28 - August 4.  For information, contact director@ffrd.org by Monday, July 11.

Nick Miroff has a fascinating story in Global Post about the role of a Catholic church publication in printing challenging articles by leading secular specialists, including foreigners, about Cuba's process of change.