Cuba on smuggling nations list

Posted on Tue, Jun. 06, 2006

STATE DEPARTMENT
Cuba on 'smuggling' nations list

From Miami Herald Wire Services

WASHINGTON - An annual State Department report has again listed Cuba and
Venezuela among countries that are not doing enough to crack down on
human trafficking.

The report, issued Monday, also listed Saudi Arabia, Belize, Myanmar,
Iran, Laos, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe.

As many as 800,000 people are bought and sold across national borders
annually or lured to other countries with false promises of work or
other benefits, according to the report. Most are women and children.

The report says Cuba ''is a source country for women and children
trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced child
labor'' and the island ``is a major destination for sex tourism.''

''Women and children from Colombia, China, Peru, Ecuador and the
Dominican Republic are trafficked to and through Venezuela and subjected
to commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor,'' it said, adding
that Venezuelans also are ``trafficked internally and [abroad] . . . for
commercial sexual exploitation.''

The report also warned Germany on Monday that it should do more to stop
a tide of prostitutes arriving for this month's soccer World Cup, and
accused 12 nations of failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave
trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers.

''The U.S. government opposes prostitution,'' which is legal in Germany,
said a State Department report on human trafficking. ``These activities
are inherently harmful and dehumanizing.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/14749076.htm