A court in Havana sentences a couple to eight and ten years in prison for corruption of minors and sexual abuse
14ymedio, Havana, October 19, 2025 — The recent publication of a judicial report in official Cuban media, with full names of the defendants in a case of corruption and child abuse, breaks with the usual pattern of opacity by the authorities. While the country still comments on the scandal of children sleeping under the stairs of the supermarket on 3rd and 70th, the news reported by Canal Habana and reproduced by Cubadebate seems to respond to the need of the State to control the story about abandoned children with a carefully chosen show trial.
The official report says that on September 29, 2025, the People’s Municipal Court of Arroyo Naranjo held a hearing and public trial charging Daima Rodríguez Núñez and Carlos Díaz González with crimes of corruption of minors, acts contrary to the integral development of minors and sexual abuse.
In this case, four girls, aged 10, 7, 4 and 1, had been abandoned by their mother and abused by her partner. The court sentenced Rodríguez Núñez to eight years in prison and Díaz González to ten, as well as suspending the mother’s parental rights.
What is unusual about this news is not only the judicial process, but how it was communicated. The State media do not usually publish the names of defendants in such cases, even less when they involve minors. Nor do they usually give such specific details about the victims or the family dynamics. This time, however, the report bears the institutional signature of the People’s Provincial Court of Havana and mentions without reservation the full names of those involved.
The response of the official apparatus has been to publish this court case as proof that “the system does act”
The well-timed coincidence with a scandal about children sleeping under the stairs of a dollar supermarket at 3rd and 70th does not go unnoticed. That story, published by this newspaper just a few days ago, highlighted the existence of minors abandoned in plain sight in the Cuban capital, sleeping between pieces of cardboard, asking for food and money, without visible intervention of child protection institutions. The image of these children, without official name or face, became evidence of an absent State in one of its most elementary duties: protecting children.
In the face of this media coup, the response of the official apparatus has been to publish this court case as proof that “the system does act.” The implicit message is that when a case of neglect and abuse is detected, the authorities respond firmly. But the reality on the streets of the Island contradicts the institutional narrative.
The communication strategy also seeks to shift responsibility for the tragedy of Cuban childhood to “deviant” or “antisocial” individuals, rather than recognizing a structural problem. The official speech portrays Daima Rodríguez Núñez and Carlos Díaz González as monstrous exceptions in a society where children are supposedly protected.
The mass exodus has aggravated the situation of thousands of children throughout the country, following the emigration of their parents
The emphasis on “due process” and application of the law “most beneficial to the accused” seems less directed at national public opinion, which has little access to real appeal mechanisms or judicial transparency, than at international observers. In other words, it is not just a matter of punishing two people, but of projecting an image of institutional legality.
In addition, the publication coincides with a context of increasing visibility of the phenomenon of abandoned children and extreme poverty in Cuba, an issue that for decades was swept under the rug of propaganda. The mass exodus has aggravated the situation of thousands of children throughout the country, following the emigration of their parents.
The visibility of the sentence in the official press — eight and ten years in prison — contrasts with the silence on dozens of other cases that never go to trial or remain in administrative obscurity. It also differs from the lack of effective public policies to prevent children from ending up living on the street. State abandonment is not a criminal offense under the Cuban Penal Code, but its consequences are visible and daily.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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