Nicaragua and Venezuela join the Island in the worst position in the document, which analyzes the situation in the Western Hemisphere
14ymedio, Washington, June 25, 2024 — The US Government finds that Cuba does not meet the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking and does not make significant efforts to do so due to the export of doctors to other countries. The Island is, like last year, among the countries with the highest incidence of this problem, along with Venezuela and Nicaragua.
This is clear from the 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) published this Monday by the US State Department, which divides countries according to their degrees in terms of human trafficking and identifies those mentioned at the most serious level.
Washington calls on Cuba to ensure that “government-sponsored labor export programs meet international labor standards, specifically that participants receive fair wages, which are paid in full to bank accounts that the workers themselves can control.”
Washington calls on Cuba to ensure that “government-sponsored labor export programs meet international labor standards
In Nicaragua, the report states, the Government of Daniel Ortega “continued to minimize the seriousness of the problem” and did not identify any trafficking victims for the second consecutive year, nor prosecute or convict any traffickers.
Similarly, Venezuela is asked to investigate and prosecute traffickers and their accomplices involved in child sex trafficking, the recruitment or use of children by illegal armed groups, the trafficking of men and LGBTQI+ people.
The report highlights that there are broad commonalities in trafficking trends faced by countries in the Western Hemisphere (North, Central and South America and the Caribbean). In this case, they are often related to irregular immigration.
“Unprecedented irregular migration in the region affects all countries in the Western Hemisphere. Migrants and asylum seekers are especially vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor, including by organized criminal groups large and small,” it notes.
In general terms, the report states, in many countries “there is political will to address human trafficking” in relation to sex trafficking, but there are “weak efforts aimed at combating forced labor.”
In many countries “there is political will to address human trafficking” in relation to sex trafficking, but there are “weak efforts aimed at combating forced labour”
Thus, labor inspection is underfunded and understaffed and typically has limited or no authority to inspect informal sector workplaces where many victims are exploited, especially along shifting migration routes.
This year, the report focuses on human traffickers’ use of increasingly “sophisticated” technology and online methods to recruit, control, market and exploit vulnerable people while evading detection.
Traffickers, for example, use the Internet to advertise and sell children online for sex, advertise fake jobs on social media platforms that are actually human trafficking schemes, transfer cryptocurrency to other traffickers, and perpetuate online scam operations.
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