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Child Trafficking
The Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation
  About the Factbook
  Contents
      Asia
      Europe
      Oceania
      Africa
      Middle East
      Central America
          & the Caribbean
      South America
      North America
About the Factbook
The Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation was compiled from media, non-governmental organization and government reports. It is an initial effort to collect facts, statistics and known cases on global sexual exploitation. Information is organized into four categories:
  - Trafficking,
  - Prostitution,
  - Pornography, and
  - Organized and Institutionalized
    Sexual Exploitation
    and Violence.

Sources were not contacted to verify information. Close examination will reveal that there are contradictions in information depending on the sources of information (ex: how many women are in prostitution in Thailand). All statistics are reported with no attempt to evaluate which numbers are more likely to be accurate. In fact, the exact numbers in many cases are not known and estimates come from different sources which use different methods to determine what they report.

We hope these facts will assist people to recognize the harm caused throughout the world by sexual violence and exploitation and catalyze action against this violence agianst women.

This project was made possible with the support of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Rhode Island and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), Norway.

If you use this information in your work, please reference this factbook-- The Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation, Donna M. Hughes, Laura Joy Sporcic, Nadine Z. Mendelsohn, Vanessa Chirgwin, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, 1999.


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Cuba

PROSTITUTION

Cuba, considered to be free of prostitution since the 1960s, is experiencing an increase in prostitution and prostitution tourism as a result of the poor economy. (Jeszs Zzqiga,"Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean" Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

In Cuba, the new generation of prostituted women vary in age between 15 and 25, although some can be found who are 13 or 31." (Jeszs Zzqiga, "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean" Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

Women in prostitution reported an increased demand for adolescents and even little girls. One pimp reported that a man from the Dominican Republic offered him $2,000 for an ‘unblemished’ girl under 14 to work there in a brothel." (Jeszs Zzqiga, "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean" Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

Policy and Law

In Cuba, legislation effective August 1997, sets fines, prison sentences of 2 to 5 years, or up to 8 years for public health, education, tourism, law enforcement or government officials and confiscation of property for pimps, madams and those who rent space out for prostitution. ("Cuba to crack down on abettors of prostitution," Reuters, 20 July 1997)

Although there has been an increase in prostitution in Cuba, the women continue to be penalized. Cuba has revived an old law against vagrancy, using it against the women in prostitution who get three warnings before they have to face a sentence of up to eight years in prison. (Jeszs Zzqiga, "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean" Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

Official Response and Action

Castro appears to be contributing to prostitution and the increase in prostitution tourism by his own tolerance. He remarked that Cuban women are prostitutes not because they needed to be but rather because they liked to make love, and that they are the most educated and the healthiest prostitutes on the market. (Jeszs Zzqiga, "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean," Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

Cuban citizens should fight prostitution and other crimes by joining neighborhood vigilante groups says a government official. Crimes, such a prostitution and drug-use, have increased since the Cuban economic crisis and the influx of foreign tourism. ("Cubans urged to join fight against rising crime," Reuters, 27 September 1998)
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