Havana, June 21 (RHC)-- The Cuban government strongly rejected on Saturday the blacklisting of the island by the U.S. State Department in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report by calling it a groundless unilateral practice and an offense against the Cuban people.

A statement issued by the general director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s United States Division, Josefina Vidal, reads that on June 20, the U.S. Department of State decided to again include Cuba on the worst category of its annual report on countries that do not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking
in persons and that do not make significant efforts to do so. Washington took the decision disregarding the high recognition and prestige of Cuba for its outstanding role in the protection of its children, youths and women. 

The statement reads that Cuba has not asked any evaluation from the United States nor does it need any recommendations from that country, which is facing some of the worst problems related to the trafficking
in children and women around the world. 

The United States has no moral grounds to certify Cuba or to suggest any kind of plans when, according to estimates, nearly 200,000 U.S. citizens are victims of trafficking inside the U.S. territory, where labor exploitation is the most expanded modality of trafficking in persons with 85 percent of legal processes on the issue are related to sexual exploitation and with over 300 thousand children, out of one million who leave their homes, are subject to some kind of exploitation.

The Government of Cuba strongly rejects the unilateral U.S. practice, for considering it groundless and an offense against the Cuban people, reads the statement and adds that the inclusion of Cuba on the U.S. list is due to political interests, as it is the certification of the island as a state sponsor of international terrorism, which is a pretext to justify the financial sanctions imposed and increasing stiffened by the U.S. government against Cuba, thus severely affecting Cuban children, youths, women and all the people.