The tragic reality of Cuba's medical brigades. The US must lead the charge against them.

The Hill

29-01-2025

With Marco Rubio's unanimous confirmation as secretary of State, now is the time to stand up to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Rubio has a history of standing up to the Cuban regime while in the Senate, there is no reason he won't continue to do so in his new position. In fact, the Trump administration has already reinstated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
January marks National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and it's important to remember that modern slavery comes in different forms. In 2008, Ramona Matos Rodriguez, a family medicine physician from Cuba, was sent to work in San Agustin, Bolivia, a small town in the Amazons. Her passport was seized by a Cuban security agent at the airport. She was not allowed to possess any other identifying documents, and she and her fellow doctors were forced to fill out paperwork with false statistics about made-up patients or else face retribution from the Cuban regime.
Matos was one of thousands of medical personnel trafficked abroad into forced labor — all for the profit of the Cuban regime.
Cuba has a long history of sending its armed forces and medical personnel to foreign countries under the guise of 'aid.' Fidel Castro sought to export his brand of revolutionary violence across Latin America — as in the failed 'invasion' of Bolivia by Castro's associate, Che Guevara. Cuba's communist regime also has a long history of sending military advisors and troops to prop up dictators, advance authoritarian parties, and attack democratically elected governments in Angola, Mozambique, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Yemen, Algeria, Syria and elsewhere.
The other tragic but less-known human capital export of Cuba is its so-called 'Medical Brigades.' Havana has sent tens of thousands of medical workers around the world since the 1960s, from poverty-stricken African nations to Portugal and Italy. Undoubtedly, in most cases, these medical professionals do provide needed health care in often difficult environments. But the regime's reason for sending them is not really about spreading the 'good news' of communist brotherhood. Rather, it is financial: the Cuban regime makes a major profit from these programs.
Cuban medical professionals are lured with promises of travel, independence and excellent pay, but these promises often turn out to be a façade. As reported by the BBC, many of these medical workers are asked to spy on their associates and are exploited while receiving just a fraction of their wages. Numerous workers have reported unsafe conditions, violence and regime officials taking their passports, forcing them to comply if they want to return to Cuba. Combined with meager pay and often explicit threats against them and their families back home, they are isolated and vulnerable.
While the Cuban regime may want the world to see its medical brigades as a noble humanitarian effort like the Peace Corps or an organization like Doctors Without Borders, we know that this program is far closer to indentured servitude. That's because while many of these medical professionals may have volunteered, their employers wield an immense amount of power over them during their tenure.
Because their pay, passports and medical licenses are often held by the Cuban embassy, they aren't able to travel and are forced to continue working in unsafe conditions. Additionally, these doctors and their families are, in a very real sense, held hostage. Once abroad, they are cowed into silence and bullied by implicit or explicit threats to themselves or their family members back home.
This is not humanitarian work or even public diplomacy. These Cuban citizens thought they were going to use their skills to help people and instead, they are surveilled, asked to spy, deprived of their right to travel, and restricted from privately communicating with family.
All of this to bring profits and positive publicity to the communist elite back in Cuba. The first duty of any government is to protect its citizens, but Cuba's communist regime violates this obligation every day. Those doctors and nurses have taken an oath to 'do no harm,' and they should not have to fear harm at the hands of their own leaders.
A bipartisan resolution introduced in the House last Congress denounces the Cuban regime for profiteering by forcibly sending its medical personnel abroad. This resolution also condemns the Pan American Health Organization and other government officials for their role in facilitating and perpetuating human trafficking and calls on the executive branch to utilize existing visa revocation authorities on the responsible parties. Foreign officials who violate international agreements and traffic human beings must be held accountable for their actions.
It is time for nations around the world to tell Cuba that its medical professionals should not be exploited, abused or threatened — and the U.S. should lead the charge.