The NGO is calling for a labor inspection that would, at a minimum, ask healthcare workers to present their passports to verify whether they have them in their possession or someone is withholding them.
14ymedio, Madrid, November 12, 2026 – The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) is pressing to ensure that the medical mission in Calabria, Italy, is at least investigated. The Madrid-based organization is urging Rome and Brussels to “activate and evaluate” a series of mechanisms to determine the conditions under which healthcare workers perform their jobs and whether those conditions could be considered “forced labor.”
Cuban doctors working in this region of southern Italy have been hired directly by the Calabrian healthcare system since the initial agreement with Havana, signed in 2022, was modified. The decision was made in response to accusations of slavery that have pursued these brigades for years, primarily because of the appropriation of up to 90% of each professional’s salary and the withholding of their passports. Although the current contractual conditions are not known, the healthcare workers themselves have disclosed that they receive their full salaries but donate up to half to the State, supposedly voluntarily.
The report, which is more cautious than the Observatory’s press release, does not assume that the Calabrian authorities are committing any type of crime. On the contrary, it suspects that the contracts comply with the law. Nevertheless, it repeatedly points out that the obligation of Italian and European authorities is to ensure compliance with their international commitments to prevent, detect early, and prosecute human trafficking and forced labor. To that end, it emphasizes that “the signing of a contract or initial consent does not validate the subsequent loss of freedom to leave the service.”
The report recalls that the Cuban regime subjects doctors to exhaustive control, threatening them with prison if they abandon missions abroad
The report recalls that the Cuban regime subjects doctors to exhaustive control, threatening them with prison if they abandon missions abroad. Although the doctors in Calabria are not technically carrying out that assignment, intimidation and coercion remain latent. The OCDH is urging labor inspectors to, at a minimum, ask the individuals concerned to present their passports to verify whether they have them in their possession or someone is withholding them.
The Observatory cites several legal and institutional instruments applicable within the European sphere, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the directive on human trafficking, which provide a legal framework for these cases. It also names existing courts, the Group of Experts on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA group), and Italian Justice and Interior institutions that could be approached to report any possible violation of rights, although in practice all of them require proof of specific coercion.
“Abusive working conditions do not automatically constitute human trafficking or forced labor, although they may provide relevant indications warranting an investigation into whether either exists,” the report insists. It also provides a telephone number through which potential victims can file an initial complaint that could trigger an investigation.
“To substantiate complaints, it is essential to provide individual testimonies, contracts, cooperation agreements, salary receipts, disciplinary instructions, communications, resignation requests, and evidence of threats or reprisals. The documentation must make it possible to establish the actual working conditions, the professionals’ effective freedom to leave the missions, and the possible coercive mechanisms used to prevent them from doing so,” it explains.
The Observatory’s report is presumably intended to pressure Italy into taking action just ahead of the arrival in Rome of the Council of Europe’s GRETA group, which will visit the country in early 2027 for its technical follow-up evaluation on combating human trafficking. To that end, it is urging authorities to launch, on their own initiative, “formal and independent investigations into the terms of the agreements signed, verify the voluntary nature of the doctors’ participation, and guarantee effective avenues of protection to shield doctors from possible reprisals.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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