VZCZCXYZ0010
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHC #1172 1632146
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 122122Z JUN 09
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO USINT HAVANA IMMEDIATE 0000

UNCLAS STATE 061172 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KTIP ELAB KCRM KPAO KWMN PGOV PHUM PREL SMIG CU
SUBJECT: CUBA -- 2009 TIP REPORT: PRESS GUIDANCE AND 
DEMARCHE 
 
REF: (A) STATE 59732 (B) STATE 005577 
 
¶1. This is an action cable; see paras 5 through 7 and 10. 
 
¶2. On June 16, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. EDT, the Secretary will 
release the 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report at a 
press conference in the Department's press briefing room. 
This release will receive substantial coverage in domestic 
and foreign news outlets.  Until the time of the Secretary's 
June 16 press conference, any public release of the Report or 
country narratives contained therein is prohibited. 
 
¶3. The Department is hereby providing Post with advance press 
guidance to be used on June 16 or thereafter.  Also provided 
is demarche language to be used in informing the Government 
of Cuba of its tier ranking and the TIP Report's imminent 
release.  The text of the TIP Report country narrative is 
provided, both for use in informing the Government of Cuba 
and in any local media release by Post's public affairs 
section on June 16 or thereafter.  Drawing on information 
provided below in paras 8 and 9, Post may provide the host 
government with the text of the TIP Report narrative no 
earlier than 1200 noon local time Monday June 15 for WHA, AF, 
EUR, and NEA countries and OOB local time Tuesday June 16 for 
SCA and EAP posts.  Please note, however, that any public 
release of the Report's information should not/not precede 
the Secretary's release at 10:00 am EDT on June 16. 
 
¶4. The entire TIP Report will be available on-line at 
www.state.gov/g/tip shortly after the Secretary's June 16 
release.  Hard copies of the Report will be pouched to posts 
in all countries appearing on the Report.  The Secretary's 
statement at the June 16 press event, and the statement of 
and fielding of media questions by G/TIP,s Director and 
Senior Advisor to the Secretary, Ambassador-at-Large Luis 
CdeBaca, will be available on the Department's website 
shortly after the June 16 event.  Ambassador de Baca will 
also hold a general briefing for officials of foreign 
embassies in Washington DC on June 17 at 3:30 pm EDT. 
 
¶5. Action Request: No earlier than 12 noon local time on 
Monday June 15 for WHA, AF, EUR, and NEA posts and OOB local 
time on Tuesday June 16 for SCA and EAP posts, please inform 
the appropriate official in the Government of Cuba of the 
June 16 release of the 2009 TIP Report, drawing on the points 
in para 9 (at Post's discretion) and including the text of 
the country narrative provided in para 8.  For countries 
where the State Department has lowered the tier ranking, it 
is particularly important to advise governments prior to the 
Report being released in Washington on June 16. 
 
¶6. Action Request continued:  Please note that, for those 
countries which will not receive an "action plan" with 
specific recommendations for improvement, posts should draw 
host governments' attention to the areas for improvement 
identified in the 2009 Report, especially highlighted in the 
"Recommendations" section of the second paragraph of the 
narrative text.  This engagement is important to establishing 
the framework in which the government's performance will be 
judged for the 2010 Report.  If posts have questions about 
which governments will receive an action plan, or how they 
may follow up on the recommendations in the 2009 Report, 
please contact G/TIP and the appropriate regional bureau. 
 
¶7. Action Request continued: On June 16, please be prepared 
to answer media inquiries on the Report's release using the 
press guidance provided in para 11.  If Post wishes, a local 
press statement may be released on or after 10:30 am EDT June 
16, drawing on the press guidance and the text of the TIP 
Report's country narrative provided in para 8. 
 
¶8. Begin Final Text of Cuba,s country narrative in the 2009 
TIP Report: 
 
-------------------------------- 
Cuba (TIER 3) 
-------------------------------- 
Cuba is principally a source of women and children trafficked 
within the country for the purpose of commercial sexual 
exploitation.  Some Cuban children are reportedly pushed into 
prostitution by their families, exchanging sex for money, 
food, or gifts.  Cuban nationals voluntarily migrate 
illegally to the United States, and there have been reports 
that some are subjected to forced labor or forced 
prostitution by their smugglers.  The full scope of 
trafficking within Cuba is difficult to gauge due to the 
closed nature of the government and sparse non-governmental 
or independent reporting.  State-run hotel workers, travel 
employees, cab drivers, and police steer some tourists to 
women and children in prostitution ) including trafficking 
victims ) though this appears to be on the decline. 
 
The Government of Cuba does not fully comply with the minimum 
standards for the elimination of trafficking, and is not 
making significant efforts to do so.  It is difficult to 
assess the true extent of trafficking in Cuba. Observation 
and independent reports suggest that the Cuban government is 
taking steps to address the problem of child sex tourism, 
though this information cannot be verified.  The government 
will not release information about anti-trafficking 
activities it may have engaged in during the past year, 
viewing U.S. attempts to engage officials on trafficking 
issues as politically motivated. 
 
Recommendations for Cuba:  Acknowledge that child sex 
trafficking in Cuba is a problem; provide greater legal 
protections and assistance for victims; develop procedures to 
identify possible trafficking victims among vulnerable 
populations; increase anti-trafficking training for law 
enforcement; and, take greater steps to prevent the 
trafficking of children in prostitution. 
 
Prosecution 
----------- 
Cuba prohibits most forms of trafficking activity through 
various provisions of its penal code.  While prostitution for 
persons over the age of 16 is legal, Title III, Section First 
Article 310 provides that using children under 16 in 
prostitution, corruption, pornographic acts or other illegal 
conduct may be punishable by from seven to 30 years' 
imprisonment or death.  Article 316, on the selling of 
minors, bans internal and transnational trafficking in 
children under the age of 16 for forced labor, prostitution, 
trade in organs, and pornography, and prescribes penalties of 
between four and 20 years, imprisonment.  Articles 302 and 
87 prohibit inducing an adult into prostitution and prescribe 
penalties of up to 20 years, imprisonment.   All these 
penalties are sufficiently stringent, and commensurate with 
those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. 
Trafficking of adults for forced labor, however, is not 
prohibited under Cuban law.  No official data relating to 
Cuban investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of 
trafficking offenders in 2008 or any other year has been made 
public.  An NGO in Cuba reports that a number of Cubans were 
convicted for human trafficking in the past year, but the 
majority of the crimes appear to be alien smuggling without 
an element of exploitation.  The government continued to 
assist the U.S. Coast Guard with investigating potential 
human trafficking cases within alien smuggling groups, 
particularly cases of illegal migrants forced to work for 
smugglers or drug gangs.  Corruption remained a problem 
throughout the government.  Reports continued of individual 
police officers accepting bribes and profiting from the 
commercial sex trade.  No investigations or prosecutions of 
public officials have been confirmed. 
 
Protection 
---------- 
Efforts by the Government of Cuba to aid trafficking victims 
were not officially reported over the last year, but appeared 
weak.  Evidence suggests that victims are punished for 
unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being 
trafficked.  Although adult prostitution is legal in Cuba, 
police occasionally rounded up women and children in Cuba,s 
sex trade and charged them with vague crimes such as 
&dangerousness8 without attempting to identify trafficking 
victims among the detained persons. Adolescents found in 
prostitution were sent to either juvenile detention 
facilities or work camps emphasizing politicized 
rehabilitation.   Personnel in most detention and 
rehabilitation centers which may house trafficking victims 
cannot provide adequate care, and conditions at some of these 
detention centers appear to be harsh.  Trafficking victims 
who are not detained may access the limited services 
available through Cuba,s health system.  Two sexual abuse 
treatment centers run by the government with assistance from 
an NGO which provide advanced care and counseling to child 
sexual abuse victims and child witnesses are available to 
trafficking victims.  Trained law enforcement and court 
personnel record videos of interviews and testimony, 
practices which could reduce children,s court appearances in 
trafficking cases if they were to be so used.  The centers, 
staff also provided specialized victim protection training to 
treatment professionals, police, prosecutors, and judges. 
The government did not show evidence of employing formal 
procedures to identify trafficking victims among vulnerable 
populations, such as people exploited in prostitution.  Cuba 
claims to have a policy of encouraging victims of any crimes 
to participate in investigations and prosecutions, though 
there were no victims of trafficking known to be so 
encouraged during the reporting period.  Cuba did not provide 
legal alternatives to the removal of foreign victims to 
countries where they face hardship or retribution.  NGOs 
report that Cuban missions in foreign countries routinely 
refuse assistance to Cuban women who state they were forced 
to travel overseas and coerced into prostitution. 
 
Prevention 
---------- 
The government does not acknowledge or condemn human 
trafficking as a problem in Cuba.  No known information 
campaigns to prevent sex or labor trafficking took place 
during the reporting period.  The government has taken steps 
to reduce demand for commercial sex acts by prosecuting child 
sex offenders.  U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals are 
currently serving lengthy sentences in Cuba for sexual 
exploitation of a minor; in the one new case this year, a 
Cuban-American was arrested in March 2008 and charged with 
corruption of minors, an offense usually involving sexual 
exploitation of children under 14.  This case has not yet 
gone to trial.  The government collects information on 
identified child sexual predators; immigration officials at 
ports of entry use this information to deny them entry to 
Cuba.  Cuba has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol. 
 
 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶9. Post may wish to deliver the following points, which offer 
technical and legal background on the TIP Report process, to 
the host government as a non-paper with the above TIP Report 
country narrative: 
 
(begin non-paper) 
 
-- The U.S. Congress, through its passage of the 2000 
Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as amended (TVPA), 
requires the Secretary of State to submit an annual Report to 
Congress.  The goal of this Report is to stimulate action and 
create partnerships around the world in the fight against 
modern-day slavery.  The USG approach to combating human 
trafficking follows the TVPA and the standards set forth in 
the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in 
Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the 
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized 
Crime (commonly known as the "Palermo Protocol").  The TVPA 
and the Palermo Protocol recognize that this is a crime in 
which the victims, labor or services (including in the "sex 
industry") are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, 
or coercion, whether overt or through psychological 
manipulation.  While much attention has focused on 
international flows, both the TVPA and the Palermo Protocol 
focus on the exploitation of the victim, and do not require a 
showing that the victim was moved. 
 
-- Recent amendments to the TVPA removed the requirement that 
only countries with a "significant number" of trafficking 
victims be included in the Report. Beginning with the 2009 
TIP Report, countries determined to be a country of origin, 
transit, or destination for victims of severe forms of 
trafficking are included in the Report and assigned to one of 
three tiers.  Countries assessed as meeting the "minimum 
standards for the elimination of severe forms of trafficking" 
set forth in the TVPA are classified as Tier 1.  Countries 
assessed as not fully complying with the minimum standards, 
but making significant efforts to meet those minimum 
standards are classified as Tier 2.  Countries assessed as 
neither complying with the minimum standards nor making 
significant efforts to do so are classified as Tier 3. 
 
-- The TVPA also requires the Secretary of State to provide a 
"Special Watch List" to Congress later in the year. 
Anti-trafficking efforts of the countries on this list are to 
be evaluated again in an Interim Assessment that the 
Secretary of State must provide to Congress by February 1 of 
each year.  Countries are included on the "Special Watch 
List" if they move up in "tier" rankings in the annual TIP 
Report -- from 3 to 2 or from 2 to 1 ) or if they have been 
placed on the Tier 2 Watch List. 
 
-- Tier 2 Watch List consists of Tier 2 countries determined: 
(1) not to have made "increasing efforts" to combat human 
trafficking over the past year; (2) to be making significant 
efforts based on commitments of anti-trafficking reforms over 
the next year, or (3) to have a very significant number of 
trafficking victims or a significantly increasing victim 
population.  As indicated in reftel B, the TVPRA of 2008 
contains a provision requiring that a country that has been 
included on Tier 2 Watch List for two consecutive years after 
the date of enactment of the TVPRA of 2008 be ranked as Tier 
¶3.  Thus, any automatic downgrade to Tier 3 pursuant to this 
provision would take place, at the earliest, in the 2011 TIP 
Report (i.e., a country would have to be ranked Tier 2 Watch 
List in the 2009 and 2010 Reports before being subject to 
Tier 3 in the 2011 Report).  The new law allows for a waiver 
of this provision for up to two additional years upon a 
determination by the President that the country has developed 
and devoted sufficient resources to a written plan to make 
significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with the 
minimum standards. 
 
-- Countries classified as Tier 3 may be subject to statutory 
restrictions for the subsequent fiscal year on 
non-humanitarian and non-trade-related foreign assistance 
and, in some circumstances, withholding of funding for 
participation by government officials or employees in 
educational and cultural exchange programs.   In addition, 
the President could instruct the U.S. executive directors to 
international financial institutions to oppose loans or other 
utilization of funds (other than for humanitarian, 
trade-related or certain types of development assistance) 
with respect to countries on Tier 3.  Countries classified as 
Tier 3 that take strong action within 90 days of the Report's 
release to show significant efforts against trafficking in 
persons, and thereby warrant a reassessment of their Tier 
classification, would avoid such sanctions.  Guidelines for 
such actions are in the DOS-crafted action plans to be shared 
by Posts with host governments. 
 
-- The 2009 TIP Report, issuing as it does in the midst of 
the global financial crisis, highlights high levels of 
trafficking for forced labor in many parts of the world and 
systemic contributing factors to this phenomenon:  fraudulent 
recruitment practices and excessive recruiting fees in 
workers, home countries; the lack of adequate labor 
protections in both sending and receiving countries; and the 
flawed design of some destination countries, "sponsorship 
systems" that do not give foreign workers adequate legal 
recourse when faced with conditions of forced labor.  As the 
May 2009 ILO Global Report on Forced Labor concluded, forced 
labor victims suffer approximately $20 billion in losses, and 
traffickers, profits are estimated at $31 billion.  The 
current global financial crisis threatens to increase the 
number of victims of forced labor and increase the associated 
"cost of coercion." 
 
-- The text of the TVPA and amendments can be found on 
website www.state.gov/g/tip. 
 
-- On June 16, 2009, the Secretary of State will release the 
ninth annual TIP Report in a public event at the State 
Department.  We are providing you an advance copy of your 
country's narrative in that report.  Please keep this 
information embargoed until 10:00 am Washington DC time June 
¶16.  The State Department will also hold a general briefing 
for officials of foreign embassies in Washington DC on June 
17 at 3:30 pm EDT. 
 
(end non-paper) 
 
¶10. Posts should make sure that the relevant country 
narrative is readily available on or though the Mission's web 
page in English and appropriate local language(s) as soon as 
possible after the TIP Report is released.  Funding for 
translation costs will be handled as it was for the Human 
Rights Report.  Posts needing financial assistance for 
translation costs should contact their regional bureau,s EX 
office. 
 
¶11. The following is press guidance provided for Post to use 
with local media. 
 
Q1.  Why was Cuba again given a ranking of Tier 3? 
 
¶A.  The Government of Cuba does not fully comply with the 
minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and is 
not making significant efforts to do so.  It is difficult to 
assess the true extent of trafficking in Cuba, however, as 
the government will not share information with the USG about 
its law enforcement or other anti-trafficking efforts. 
 
Q2.  What is the nature of the trafficking problem in Cuba? 
 
¶A.  Cuba is principally a source of women and children 
trafficked within the country for the purpose of commercial 
sexual exploitation.  Some Cuban children are reportedly 
pushed into prostitution by their families, exchanging sex 
for money, food, or gifts.  Cuban nationals voluntarily 
migrate illegally to the United States, and there have been 
reports that some are subjected to forced labor or forced 
prostitution by their smugglers.  The full scope of 
trafficking within Cuba is difficult to gauge due to the 
closed nature of the government and sparse non-governmental 
or independent reporting.  State-run hotel workers, travel 
employees, cab drivers, and police steer some tourists to 
women and children in prostitution ) including trafficking 
victims ) though this appears to be on the decline. 
 
Q3.  What, if anything, could Cuba do to improve its anti- 
trafficking efforts? 
 
¶A.  To advance its efforts to combat human trafficking, it is 
recommended that the GOC acknowledge that child sex 
trafficking  in Cuba is a problem; provide greater legal 
protections and assistance for victims; develop procedures to 
identify possible trafficking victims among vulnerable 
populations such as women and children in prostitution; 
increase anti-trafficking training for law enforcement; and 
take additional steps to prevent the trafficking of children 
in prostitution. 
 
¶12. The Department appreciates posts, assistance with the 
preceding action requests. 
CLINTON