Police moved against prostitutes in Havana after Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald published series on child prostitution in Cuba

Posted on Tuesday, 07.16.13

Police moved against prostitutes in Havana after Toronto Star and El
Nuevo Herald published series on child prostitution in Cuba
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

The Café Paris in downtown Havana, a seedy hangout for prostitutes from
Cuba's provinces, is reported to be nearly empty. So are several other
bar-girl joints in the neighborhood, like La Mina, El Maragoto and the
Golden Shower.

Prostitutes still prowl the working-class Centro Habana neighborhood at
night. But a bigger and tougher police presence has driven them into
alleys and backstreets and away from daylight hours, according to Havana
residents.

Police arrested some of the women, forced others aboard trains or their
home provinces and warned others to stay away from the more visible
areas — just as they have done during their many previous drives against
on Havana's always thriving sex trade.

But Havana journalists say this latest drive, launched in early April,
came in direct response to reports on child sex tourism in Cuba
published by The Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald March 15-17 after a
joint investigation.

Police also detained one of the girlfriends of a Canadian named in the
reports — James McTurk, 78, convicted of child sex tourism with Cuban
girls as young as three — and questioned four girls aged seven to 12 for
signs of abuse by McTurk.

Yet the taxi driver who worked for the Canadian for 20 years — and
recalled his many girlfriends in the beach resorts of Varadero,
Guardalavaca and Marea del Portillo — said police never questioned him
about his "good friend Jimmy."

Toronto police told the Star that they have passed on information about
McTurk's victims to Cuba through Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs
and have received good cooperation from Cuban authorities.

Cuba's state news media monopoly has made no mention of the newspapers'
reports. But two dissident Havana journalists and bloggers who write
often about prostitution asserted that the police launched the clampdown
in reaction to the reports.

"I believe your stories were the detonators for the crackdown," Ivan
Garcia, 43, said by phone from Havana. Victor Manuel Dominguez, also
speaking by phone from Cuba, added: "Those reports clearly unleashed the
wave of repression."

Dominguez, 56, said the stepped up police pressure drove prostitutes out
of an unofficial "zone of tolerance" for low-priced prostitutes from the
provinces near San Lazaro and Belascoaín streets in the Centro Habana.

He ticked off the now-desolate hooker hangouts he can see on his walks
to a nearby bookstore: the Café Paris, La Mina, the bar Casa del
Escabeche, the Las Ruinas park, the bar Lluvia de Oro and the Maragoto
Café within the Hotel Florida.

Havana lawyer Veizant Boloy, who writes for several Web pages, noted in
a column that the Star and Nuevo Herald reports "alerted the authorities
and forced them to take serious measures," including the arrests of more
than 20 women in one raid on April 9.

That was the same day police arrested Delvis Reitor Torres, 25, for
investigation on charges of corruption of minors because of her
relationship with an elderly Canadian known only as "Jimmy," according
to her mother, Gisela Torres Jordán.

Toronto Police Det. Paul Robb, who investigated McTurk, said a search of
his Toronto apartment last July turned up the names of Reitor Torres and
at least four of her neighbors in the southeastern village of Marea del
Portillo, in the municipality of Pilón in Granma province.

McTurk stayed many times at a nearby beach hotel, the Club Amigo Marea
del Portillo, Robb added. Online guest reviews of the hotel and the
adjoining Club Farallón show several complaints of male tourists hanging
out with young Cuban prostitutes.

The mother declared that "Jimmy" always brought candy, pencils and
clothes for the neighborhood children during his visits, about twice a
year in recent years, "that he distributed in front of us adults."

But after her daughter's arrest police and a psychiatrist questioned
four neighborhood girls, aged seven, nine and 12, for signs of abuse by
the Canadian, according to Torres Jordan.

"The girls said that no, that at no time did he touch them, that he
really was here to hand out little things to the girls," the mother said
in a recorded phone interview from Pilón with dissident Havana
journalist Dania Virgen García, who writes often about prison abuses.

Torres Jordan later told an El Nuevo Herald journalist who phoned her
from Miami that her daughter had been freed several weeks after her
arrest and had moved out of Marea del Portillo, but she refused to
provide further details on her complaint or the four little girls.

"That was confusion," she said. "He did something in Varadero, but
because he was also here they (Cuban authorities) did an investigation
here."

McTurk pleaded guilty in Toronto last month to charges of making child
pornography, importing child pornography, sexual interference,
invitation to sexual touching and child sex tourism – with girls as
young as three — and is in prison awaiting sentencing. He could spend
the rest of his life behind bars if he is declared a dangerous offender.

The retired postal worker also was convicted of Cuba-related child
pornography in 1995 and 1998 and was on the Canadian sex offender's
registry. Yet McTurk made at least 29 trips to Cuba between November of
2008 and his last arrest in July 2012.

Court records show him flying from Varadero to Canada 20 times and seven
times from Manzanillo, the town closest to Marea del Portillo and Pilón.
He also returned home on one flight each from the eastern cities of
Camaguey and Holguín.

Varadero taxi driver Rolando "Rolly" Cabrera Abreu, 43, told El Nuevo
Herald that McTurk always brought little gifts, sweets and clothes for
children during his many visits to the beach town over the 20 years that
he worked for the tourist.

McTurk also "had a woman in each town" he visited, Cabrera said, listing
Marea del Portillo, Varadero on the north central coast, Guardalavaca on
the northeast coast and Amarillo beach east of Havana.

But McTurk never talked to him about sex with children, Cabrera
insisted. If the Canadian was molesting children, he added, "that's his
problem. I know nothing about that."

Police have never questioned him about McTurk, Cabrera added. But if
asked he will say that he has "only the best opinion of him as a human
being. I know nothing bad about Jimmy."

"I am telling you this because of the fondness and friendship that I
feel for him," the taxi driver declared. "In Varadero, everyone knows
Jimmy, and Jimmy knows everyone.

Source: "Police moved against prostitutes in Havana after Toronto Star
and El Nuevo Herald published series on child prostitution in Cuba -
Cuba - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/16/v-fullstory/3501722/police-moved-against-prostitutes.html