Cuba and Canada Sign Agreement to Fight against Sex Crimes
HAVANA TIMES – Representatives from Cuba’s Ministry of Interior (MININT) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) signed an agreement today to reinforce co-operation on sex related crimes, Cuban news agency ACN reported.
The agreement takes bilateral cooperation efforts into account to protect children and adolescents from the sex trade, pornography, sex trafficking and other forms of sexual abuse.
More specifically, it sets out to extend multilateral agreements that have been in place for over 20 years to share information, carry out joint investigations and train their police forces.
The document reinforces “both countries’ willingness to respect the objectives of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography,” according to statements made at the meeting that took place at the headquarters of MININT’s Department of International Relations and Collaboration.
The cooperation agreement of police forces in both Cuba and Canada include a supplementary protocol from the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children.
The new bilateral agreement formalizes these operations and extends them to other categories that include experts sharing experiences and sharing applied technologies to prevent and tackle the above-mentioned crimes.
Written in Spanish, English and French, the document was signed by Colonel Idais Borges Barrios, head of MININT’s Department of Minors, and Marie Claude Arsenault, General Director of the Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
Cuban ambassador, Josefina Vidal Barreiro, and Canadian ambassador, Patrick Parisot, were witnesses to the signing.
In 1999, both governments countersigned a memorandum of understanding about cooperation efforts in the fight against drug trafficking, and in 2003, an agreement about the distribution of seized assets or equivalent funds.
Cuba proposed a national 2017-2020 action plan of “zero tolerance” against sexual-related crimes, tracking and apprehending human traffickers and offering protection to its victims.
A report presented at the end of last year stipulated that eight foreigners are currently serving sentences in Cuba for sexual crimes against minors: three Italians, two Spanish, one German, one Indian and one British man.
I’m in indigenous woman from canada and agree with other canadian friend about rcmp abuse. I was taken from my home by rcmp cops and they raped me and dropped me off in the middle of knowere. if my uncle had not seen me walking the road I was dead. and cant press charges becoz who u gonna call, the rcmp?
and Italy, Germany and Russia – all of whom have increasing numbers of tourists to Cuba.
It is a sad reflection on our times that paedophiles travel from wealthy developed countries to poorer parts of the world in order to carry out their exploitation of children.
Cuba is certainly not the only destination for these people. There are far more popular places for this type of crime.
The USA is the biggest problem when it comes to unleashing this type of exploitation.
I hasten to add that not at all because US men are any worse than other nationalities, it is simply because it is the most populous of developed countries.
It would seem that going forward the amount of US tourists going to Cuba will increase. This will be of benefit to the Cuban economy regardless of which system of governance Cuba has in the long term.
This increase in US tourism will inevitably include an influx of US paedophiles into Cuba.
Any reciprocal arrangements Cuba has with Canada regarding this problem is positive.
Going forward they will also need one with the USA.
Roy that’s a bit sensationalist now isn’t it. I’m all for any measures taken to prevent tourists from sexually exploiting Cuban children for their own pleasure. Right now Cuba is a bit like a sexual smorgasbord. And nameless Canadian friend, I hardly think Cuba is going to be inundated with gun wielding Mounties. Now if only Germany, Italy, Spain etc followed suit. God knows they need to…
I certainly agree that the RCMP is militarized. In that respect they have much in common with Cuba’s State Police. The alternative of good policing as practiced by some of the city police services in Canada and in much of the UK, is about service to the public and being “the oil upon the troubled waters, not fuel on the flames”. There are I believe some 23,000 officers in the RCMP and obviously with such numbers, there are a few “bad eggs”. it is however wrong to paint all members of the RCMP with the same brush. Would you “A (nameless) Friend from Canada” prefer to forego police services?
As a parent and grandparent of children resident in the UK and Canada, I can only approve of the continuation of cooperation regarding child abuse, other sexually related crimes and drug trafficking.
Do we want Canada to co-operate with Cuba in fighting sexual exploitation of Cuban children? I certainly do.
If you don’t want the co-operation to take this form, what form of co-operation would you propose?
As Yemen is dying proof that it is far better to be burned alive, blown to bits, or to starve death than it is to be sexually abused; why don’t we just kill them both? Victim and perpetrator? Obviously, by our own behavior, they’d both greatly prefer it
Are you sure you want to expose your children to Canada’s militarized police force? Their members have a long history of child abuse. I experienced abuse from an RCMP member for my entire childhood and I would not want another child to go through what I did. Cubans.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/rcmp-herded-native-kids-to-residential-schools-1.992618
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/11/21/rcmp-officer-found-guilty-in-disturbing-child-abuse-case.html
https://barrie.ctvnews.ca/rcmp-officer-released-on-bail-after-child-pornography-charges-1.2185469
https://torontosun.com/2016/02/24/rcmp-officer-found-guilty-of-accessing-possessing-child-pornography/wcm/bba4f0c3-0739-4ddb-93d1-9897ff80d9cf
https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/former-b-c-rcmp-officer-gets-mandatory-six-month-sentence-for-child-porn-possession-2
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/mountie-charged-with-possessing-producing-child-pornography/article16325259/
These are not good people.