Prisoners Defenders • United Nations accuses Cuban Medical Missions abroad of slavery and forced labour

Prisoners Defenders’ Exclusive release, January 6, 2020:

In response to the complaint by Prisoners Defenders sent on May 10, 2019 to the United Nations, which included the formal complaint with all the evidence and 110 testimonies, two United Nations Special Rapporteurships, the Special Rapporteurship on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, and the Office of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, are taxative when condemning the facts, and have indicated in an extensive report that “the reported working conditions could rise to forced labor, according to the forced labor indicators established by the International Labor Organization. Forced labor constitutes a contemporary form of slavery. ”
In addition, they indicate how Cuba’s legislation punishes with 8 years in prison doctors if they decide to change jobs or not returning to Cuba, or how they are prevented from seeing family members, or how contracts are withheld, or how is confiscated more than 75% of the doctor’s income, which “does not allow them to live with dignity“, or how Cuba makes them work more than “64 hours per week“ (160% of the maximum authorized by the ILO), how they have restricted and monitored their freedom of movement and the right to privacy or communications with nationals or foreigners, or how professionals reported receiving regular threats from Cuban state officials in destination countries and how medical women have suffered sexual harassment, among many other violations that the UN reports as justified by both information submitted and “first-hand information”.
The complaint to which this procedure responds was drafted and filed by Prisoners Defenders, a European organization whose leaders are only European, and this complaint initiative was funded entirely by the person of its President, Javier Larrondo. Prisoners Defenders detaches in this complaint any motivation except respect for human rights.
Cuba has NOT responded (consulted the publication on 06/01/2019 at 14:33 Madrid time), assuming with its lack of response what in the international legal system is called the “tacit acceptance of the accusations”, or “qui siluit quun loqui et decuit et protuit, consentire videtur ”, that is, if he who can and should speak does not do so, it must be concluded that he consents.