Well actually, you haven’t lived in Cuba for over 25 years… One way or the other, there isn’t a government on earth that condones child prostitution, no matter how corrupt and ideologically reprehensible.
I’m not going to answer for every government on earth, but this is exactly what I said a few posts back:
So the short of it is that we all agree the Cuban government does not in any way mandate, promote or condone the prostitution of minors.
No, but I think many will agree that you made an assinine statement.
Care to elaborate, Brutus? Which statement? Is there a functioning brain behind your keyboard?
Look, Cuba is strapped for cash. But there is no way in hell that enough money is being made from child prostitution for the Cuban government to even consider condoning it. Individuals may be bribed and so on, but the institutions are not going to protect such a source of revenue. Maybe, just maybe, the dollars earned through overall prostitution could make a difference, but child prostitution? It’s something of a specialist interest area.
Two link relevant to the discussion. The first talks about a Canadian man arrested for sexual contact with a minor, as follows:
The second discusses said man’s conviction:
All fine and good, now, do you want to guess how much press this got inside Cuba? Zero. Make of that what you will.
FWIW, in the spirit of the site’s motto, I hijack this long enough to mention that Thailand has made great strides in this area due to dogged effort. The “sex industry” thrives more-or-less legally, but the “child sex industry” has moved to poorer nations like Cambodia and Vietnam.
Now back to Cuba.
Ok, a few facts seem to have been established. Prostitution per se is not illegal in Cuba. A chica(over 16) acting on her own meeting a jon(acting on his own) and going back to her place for a romp and cash exchange seems perfectly legal. The excerpts from the UN report and the fragments of Cuban statutes quoted on the ageofconsent.com site seem to establish that.
The piece which still seems unresolved is the evidence presented by bayonet1976
From my research on the topic I have learned that all a country needs to do to become “a hot spot for prostitution” is to legalize it. It becomes a very hot spot if it is a poor country and the prices are low. In the US a prostitute(often called “escorts”) are around two hundred dollars an hour. Travel reports from Cuba indicate 40-50 US dollars would get you a Cuban prostitute for several hours and a few dollars more would get her for overnight. Add in another $30 to use a private residence. The “cottage industry” referenced above is private homeowners renting small bungalows to jons on a nightly, daily, or weekly basis. Reports I’ve seen indicate ~1000 to 1500 US dollars for a “private residence” and several Cuban women visiting in shifts. All this can be arranged through a “travel agent” and is blatently illegal although a sex tourist making all their arrangements themselves would not be. Assuming they contacted each prostitute individualy and not through a pimp or other agent. If anyone wants cites you can email me and wait a couple of weeks while I get my home PC repaired. I am NOT accessing that kind of stuff at work nor am I posting it on the boards.
Anyway. Two full nights, or ~four individual sessions(possibly with different providers) for what it would cost for one hour with an “escort” in the states. There is a way to conduct the transactions legally and it is inexpensive. THIS is all it takes to be come “a hot spot for prostitution.” No advertisement is necessary, as I mentioned there is an extensive community of “hobbyists”(yes, that is what jons call themselves online) who are more than happy to spread the word. No government support, mandates, or advertising is needed. If the government runs the hotels and bars tourists from bringing girls back to their rooms, private “beachfront villas” provide the venue.
As to police turning their heads. I don’t have the experience of sailor, or bayonet1976, but if prostitution is legal as long as there are only two parties involved, then the cops have no reason to bust the couples as long as there is no third party involved or unless they have reason to believe the girl is underage. Clearly this is still prostitution, but it is the form of prostitution that is legal in Cuba. If a woman, acting on her own, and a man, acting on his own, work out a sex-for-cash deal and both are of age, then the cops are supposed to leave them alone.
Anyone have any idea what percentage of these situations are actually underage prostitutes? Any idea if the police can tell or somehow know they are underage and still choose to look the other way? If these situations are common, any idea if they “look the other way” because of a mandate from their superiors or on their own authority? december needs to show that the mandate to “look the other way” comes from Castro to prove his point. I don’t think we’re anywhere near there right now, but more evidence, in either direction, is helpful.
Enjoy,
Steven
On Preview:
furt, the situation in Thailand is a HUGE hijack, but it may be worth noting that even though Thailand authorities HAVE SERIOUSLY cracked down on child prostitituion, it’s not as gone as they’d like to represent. Part of it is cultural and unless the Thai people have a cultural revolution, I don’t see it going away. For anyone who doesn’t know, the largest consumer of prositution in Thailand is actually its native Thai population. Even “underage” prostitution(the Thai have a bit of a problem with the western definition of “of age”). I had a friend who taught English in Bankock for a couple of years in college and I’ve done some research on Thailand as well. Although there are severe penalties for sex with minors, there are still brothels with “back rooms” that, get this, mostly cater to the locals. It is actually quite hard, judging from the reports that I’ve seen, for a “sex tourist” to gain the trust of a “mama-san” to the point where underage prostitutes will be offered. They are still available, more or less, to the natives however. Bizarre situation there.
bayonet, can you clarify what you meant by the “guess how much press this got inside Cuba” bit? What would publicising or not publicising this event accomplish? What motives are you suggesting may have moved the Cuban government to not publish this story?
bayonet1976-All fine and good, now, do you want to guess how much press this got inside Cuba? Zero. Make of that what you will.
OK, my guess would be very little coverage and I would make very little of it. I don’t expect media the world over to be as pornographic about it’s news selection as in North America.
Actually reading that post I forget which side you are arguing. A man waits 8 months for trial and is sentenced to 25 yrs. Do you think this is too light? too heavy?
D’oh!
The “cottage industry” referenced above is private homeowners renting small bungalows to jons on a nightly, daily, or weekly basis. Reports I’ve seen indicate ~1000 to 1500 US dollars for a “private residence” for a week and several Cuban women visiting in shiftsduring the week. All this can be arranged through a “travel agent” and is blatently illegal although a sex tourist making all their arrangements themselves would not be.
Enjoy,
Steven
I have no problem with the sentence handed out in this case, and posted the links to show that the Cuban government is NOT promoting child prostitution. However, and this is the point of my own statement, the government is also making very little effort to publicize the laws on child prostitution.
I find your statement about media coverage in Cuba to be a little disingenous. In case you did not know, the Cuban government controls each and every single media outlet in Cuba, whatever gets published is done with the full review and approval of the government, and of course what doesn’t get published as well.
The fact that this case got no publicity whatsoever is a problem. If the government wants to stop child prositution then it would be helpful if it made a big deal of the crimes, and the efforst being made to stop it. Of course, that publicity would be bad in a number of levels, first it would show that there is a problem in Cuba with prostitution tourism, and child prostitution specifically, and second, publicizing the punishment would also deter some tourism. And Cuba needs tourists and their money.
I’ve already posted this elsewhere but here it goes. The Cuban government will NOT do anything to deter tourism, even if that means that cases like this get no press whatsoever. The problem with this attitude is that, as far as Cubans know, these crimes do not exist and are not a problem. That means, among other things, that the populace is not involved in finding out about, and reporting these crimes. But it serves the government’s purposes. Which leads me back to my original point, which was that the Cuban government is NOT promoting child prostitution, it is passing stiff laws against it, and in some cases even enforcing those laws, BUT it could certainly be doing a heck of a lot more.
If you think Cubans are served by being kept in the dark about these types of crimes, please give me your reasoning.
True enough. I was addressing the implication that Thailand had a “child sex tourism” industry as is being claimed for Cuba. At the risk of continuing the hijack, the child sex trade in Asia generally is fuelled by Asians, especially wealthy HK and Singapore Chinese. There is a folk belief that deflowering gives the man longevity or potency.
I was in Cuba in 1998 and 2000. Apparently, the police started really cracking down on prostitution around 1999. If anything, the police are too heavy-handed about going after prostitution. A friend (American man) who visits Cuba frequently discovered that he could no longer be seen in public with Cuban female friends, as the police would stop them and take her to the station for questioning. I’m not sure how to solve the problem of sex tourism in Cuba, but I don’t think increased police enforcement is the answer. What’s clear is that the Cuban government has recognized the problem and is taking steps to solve it. Don’t the European and North American johns bear some responsibility in this? Their governments could start prosecuting men who travel abroad for the purpose of having illegal sex with minors.
bayonet, are you suggesting that Cubans do not know that prostitution is widespread and that police are cracking down on it? That’s ridiculous. Even if the problem hadn’t received a great deal of official and public attention in recent years, it’s so visible that you’d have to be blind not to see it.
bayonet1976-I find your statement about media coverage in Cuba to be a little disingenous. In case you did not know, the Cuban government controls each and every single media outlet in Cuba, whatever gets published is done with the full review and approval of the government, and of course what doesn’t get published as well.
Well yes of course the Granma is a shameless propaganda rag and if child prostitution was a major cause of Castro’s it would be front page news. So I guess I agree if you are saying child prostitution is not that big on Castro’s agenda. I disagree it implies anything more sinister.
I’m sure his editors would defend with there’s only so much room in the paper and a lot of “America Sucks” stories out there.(mirroring the way NYT editors reply to Chomsky 
)
Which one would that be? And I’d like to see how “many” here agree with you that it was assinine. I have a feeling you may be quite wrong.
Here are some miscellaneous articles that show the problem of prostitution has received public attention within Cuba:
http://www.walnet.org/csis/news/world_2003/reuters-030127.html
http://granmai.cubaweb.com/espanol/2003/junio/mier25/losninos.html
http://www.joven.cu/PRO/introduccion.html
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y02/jul02/18o2.htm
http://64.21.33.164/CNews/y99/feb99/16o11.htm
http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu/discursos/fidelp5.htm
I agree that Cuba, like other dictatorships, will not publicise things which it considers reflect badly on the country. For the same reason China hid the extension of AIDS and SARS. etc. They are not trying to increase AIDS or SARS, it is just a reflex reaction. They think if you ignore bad things they will go away.
While the problem may be worse in dictatorships it is not restricted to them. It is not like the government of the USA is totally open and forthcoming about things which happen in the USA.