Havana, August 16 (RHC) -- Cuba reiterated Tuesday its zero tolerance policy regarding any form of human trafficking, as well as the continuity of actions to prevent and confront this scourge and associated crimes.

Cuba's National Report on Preventing and Confronting Trafficking in Persons and Protecting Victims for the year 2022, published today by the Foreign Ministry, detailed that in that period a national action plan is being implemented until 2024 to coordinate the actions of the State and civil society organizations.

The text added that the various governmental actors involved maintain training as one of the essential elements to increase risk perception.

Likewise, cooperation actions and the timely exchange of information with international organizations, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), the United Nations system and counterpart agencies of countries in the region and Europe continued, in order to guarantee an effective response.

An example of this cooperation is the cooperation between the Ministry of the Interior of the island and Interpol to detect the use of social networks in the possible commission of crimes associated with child pornography and sexual abuse of minors.

The report added that in the previous year, specialized attention was maintained to the victims of trafficking identified in the previous document, as well as to those people who are in situations of greater vulnerability, particularly girls, boys, women, the elderly and people with disabilities.

During the period in question, six cases were prosecuted for crimes with typical features of human trafficking. The figure shows the low incidence of this crime in the national territory.

The text pointed out that six victims were identified, five of them girls and one woman. Likewise, the penal sanctions for the perpetrators are in the range of five to 15 years of imprisonment.

The Foreign Ministry points out in the report that the joint actions of state entities and civil society organizations constitute a pillar for the prevention of this scourge; in addition, the various legal instruments in force in the country allow preventing and confronting it.

There are three Centers for the Protection of Children and Adolescents in the cities of Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Santa Clara, which have highly qualified multidisciplinary teams.

More than 7000 actions were carried out to protect minors, to prevent the occurrence of events in which they are victims of sexual abuse.

The report concluded that the joint operations and the results achieved by the different entities of the Government and civil society demonstrate Cuba's willingness to maintain a zero tolerance policy towards human trafficking in any of its manifestations and the will to cooperate with all countries and international organizations. (Source: Prensa Latina)