Cuba exploits its doctors abroad. It’s human trafficking, not ‘charity’
The U.S. State Department will be issuing its annual Trafficking in Persons Report any day now, and many dedicated human-rights activists in South Florida have been lobbying the government to correctly classify the Cuban medical missions as human trafficking.
I am optimistic that this truth finally will be acknowledged in this important report, which is read by so many lawmakers, think tanks and leaders around the world.
Every year, countries want to know how the United States classifies them on this crucial thermometer. I’m looking forward to congratulating the State Department for finally doing the right thing by stating the obvious: The Castro regime profits every time it sends a doctor, nurse or health professional to serve abroad.
It is anything but an act of mercy. It is yet another profit-making scheme that exploits Cubans and enriches the regime.
For too long, agencies around the world have been treating the evil regime as a benevolent enterprise that is providing free healthcare to the poor. But the regime must be viewed as what it is: a cruel dictatorship that abuses its citizens to maintain power and control.
I admire the courage of the brave doctors who have come forward to expose this racket and have taken the unprecedented step of filing a lawsuit against the PAHO — the Pan American Health Organization.
As the lawsuit states, this agency shamefully has collected more than $75 million since 2013 “by enabling, managing and enforcing illegal human trafficking of Cuban medical professionals in Brazil.”
Cuban doctors were paid only a pittance — 10 percent or less. Yet PAHO paid at least 85 percent to the Cuban regime — and even kept 5 percent for itself.
What a scam.
The Cuban doctors essentially are indentured servants while the regime makes an estimates $8 billion every single year from this exploitation. Yet people are still under the false impression that this is a humanitarian mission of the Castro regime. Far from it.
In fact, more than 50 percent of Cuba’s national budget comes from this forced labor and human trafficking. Medical professionals are threatened with serious economic and personal harm if they don’t go overseas; they are sent abroad while their families stay in Cuba; they aren’t told where they will be sent; their movement while abroad is monitored; and they are paid a pittance of what the host country pays for their services.
In Brazil alone, since 2013, PAHO has been in cahoots with the regime to obtain more than 10,000 Cuban healthcare professionals. PAHO makes a profit by violaing its own constitution, U.S. and international laws, as well as U.N. protocols it is obligated to follow.
Thanks to Miami attorney Sam Dubbin and the doctors who brought the lawsuit against PAHO, this incredible story of exploitation and abuse is now in full view for all to see. Similar to Castro’s educational indoctrination in Cuban schools being falsely viewed as a literacy program even by Bernie Sanders, the leading Democratic candidate for U.S. president, so, too, is this sinister enterprise incorrectly painted as a kind and benevolent act of charity by Cuba.
Ambassador Carlos Trujillo, who so ably represents the United States in the Organization of American States (OAS), held a important event in Washington, D.C., “The Dark Reality Behind the Cuban Medical Mission.” He rightly called this scam modern-day slavery in the Americas.
Trujillo called on the OAS member states to take action against this “intolerable and profoundly unacceptable” injustice.
There was testimony of doctors not getting paid and of having host countries confiscate their passports so they didn’t defect.
Medical teams worked in unsanitary conditions, with members subjected to sexual harassment. Such testimony is difficult make because many of these doctors have families back in Cuba, and they bear the brunt of the regime’s brutality.
It is up to each and every one of us to shed light onto these abuses of forced labor that the regime tries to pass off as acts of charity. Next time someone tells you about what a wonderful program Cuba has in sending doctors abroad, be sure to pull back the curtain and tell them what this farce is really all about: exploitation and human trafficking.
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/Ileana-Ros-Lehtinen/article240740726.html