US keeps Cuba on trafficking blacklist, says Havana's efforts fell on every front

Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald on Oct 8, 2026

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Cuba’s government scaled back its fight against human trafficking on every front, prosecuting fewer traffickers and identifying fewer victims, the U.S. State Department said Thursday as it kept the island on the lowest ranking in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report.

The report says Havana’s prosecution, protection and prevention efforts decreased compared to 2025. Cuba has been on Tier 3, the lowest level, since the 2019 report.

Similar to previous years, the State Department found a “government policy or pattern” of forced labor in Cuba’s labor export program, including its overseas medical missions, from which the regime profited. Officials recruited and deployed workers “using deception and threats of retaliation,” the report said.

The report estimates that about 18,000 workers in the government overseas missions, mostly medical professionals, were in 52 countries in early 2026, down from 26,000 last year. It estimates the Cuban government pockets between 50% and 95% of their wages.

The report also flags Cuban medical missions in other nations in the Americas, including the Bahamas and Saint Lucia. The chapter on Guatemala says its government ended the cooperation agreement with Havana in early 2026.

In a finding absent from the 2025 chapter, the State Department cites an outside report saying the Cuban government subjects some political prisoners to unlawful prison labor. That work spans agriculture, sugar cane cutting, construction and public services. The regime allegedly exported goods made with forced prison labor, such as marabou charcoal and tobacco products, to some European countries.

The report also links some labor-exporting entities to GAESA, the military conglomerate that controls large chunks of the economy, including those operating in Angola, where more than 2,000 “forced labor victims” were present.

This year, the State Department again cites Cubans fraudulently recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine.

Fewer cases, fewer victims

The report relies on Havana’s own annual trafficking report, published in December 2025 with data for calendar year 2024. That year, authorities investigated 14 sex trafficking cases, seven of them transnational. They prosecuted and convicted 10 traffickers involved in the seven domestic cases.

In 2023, by comparison, authorities reported 14 investigations, 20 prosecutions and 19 convictions. The report said most 2024 cases were prosecuted under non-trafficking provisions of the penal code. Authorities did not investigate any labor trafficking cases.

The State Department did credit Havana with prosecuting and convicting sex trafficking crimes, “particularly cases involving adults.”

Cuba identified seven sex trafficking victims in 2024, one woman and six girls, down from 14 in 2023. It also imprisoned two girls in correctional facilities who may have committed crimes as a result of being trafficked, the report said. Cuba has no standard procedure to identify victims and no national referral mechanism.

The Cuban government has rejected the ranking in past years, calling it politically motivated and saying it has “zero tolerance” for trafficking.

“Human trafficking is a direct assault on the values of freedom and dignity that define America. The 2026 Trafficking in Persons Report reveals new ways criminal organizations and repressive regimes use this abhorrent practice for financial gain,” said Thomas Pigott, a State Department spokesperson. “The report also calls for accountability for governments that fail to punish traffickers and protect their citizens. The Trump Administration will use all available tools to fight traffickers and their enablers and bring them to justice.”

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