A group of Cuban doctors are seeking $129 million in damages, alleging that Cuba's communist regime engaged in human trafficking by sending them to Brazil under conditions of forced labor. The lawsuit, filed in Washington D.C., claims that between 2013 and 2018, approximately 3,500 Cuban doctors were dispatched to Brazil, with the Cuban regime allegedly earning over $2.3 billion for their services while paying the physicians a small fraction of that amount.
The doctors, who are now living in the United States, assert that they were not informed that 90 percent of their wages would be remitted to the Cuban government. Court documents further allege that while working in Brazil, they were under constant surveillance by Cuban intelligence and were instructed to spy on their host country. The lawsuit states that any deviation from their assigned missions could result in withholding of pay and a prohibition from returning to Cuba for eight years. In some instances, the doctors claim their families in Cuba were held as leverage.
The suit names the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a Washington D.C.-based entity partially funded by the U.S. government, as the financial intermediary responsible for brokering these medical missions and charging Cuba a five percent handling fee. Plaintiffs contend that PAHO facilitated this alleged human trafficking scheme.
Ramona Matos, one of the plaintiffs, described being subjected to a 6 p.m. curfew and threats from Cuban intelligence handlers while on assignment in the Brazilian Amazon. Another plaintiff, Tatiana Carballo Gomez, reportedly received instructions to encourage Brazilian patients to vote against an incumbent mayor and support left-wing candidates favored by Cuba. Warnings were allegedly issued to doctors who used social media to voice complaints about their salaries.
Plaintiffs' attorney, Sam Dubbin, criticized PAHO for allegedly delaying the case through immunity arguments and refusing to provide financial documents related to the program. In 2014, Matos and other doctors defected during their missions and have since been granted humanitarian parole in the U.S.
The U.S. State Department has previously characterized Cuba's medical missions as a form of human slavery, noting in its Trafficking in Persons Reports that there was a government policy and pattern to profit from labor export programs, particularly its foreign medical missions, with strong indications of forced labor.