The newspaper Sierra Maestra assures that the child labor cases are the childrens’ own exceptions to “the complexity of context”
14ymedio, Havana, 19 June 2024 — One of the pillars of social welfare that for years the Cuban regime has defended as one of its greatest conquests collapsed this Monday, when the official press recognized that in Santiago de Cuba – as in the rest of the Island – there are cases of child labor. Children and adolescents in this situation are treated in the article as the children’s own exceptions to “the complexity of context” – a new euphemism for the economic crisis – and, although on no occasion are figures or statistics mentioned, officialdom insists that there are few.
The Sierra Maestra newspaper begins by talking about Luis, a sixth grader (between 10 and 11 years old) who sells bread in the mornings to help his mother and is also in charge of his three-year-old brother. The international regulations and charters that speak of children’s rights, of which Cuba is a signatory, speak of categorically proscribing child employment, but the newspaper says that “currently there are some cases, typical of the complexity of the context, that deserve to be evaluated differently, as a preventive policy and effective action.”
The idea, however, is nothing more than a suggestion that does not delve further into the problem and remains half-baked.
The article, which addresses a problem that is often ignored by officialdom, also cuts through the debate with a string of documents and articles that regulate work at an early age. On the Island, in the case of adolescents who finish compulsory education and want to start working, the State has rules and permits so
