ROOSEVELT SKERRIT, in a public address, made in response to the appeal by the United States, for all Eastern Caribbean states to terminate their Cuban doctor programs, stated that he intends for Dominica to continue to participate in a program that the U.S., United Nations, and other international authorities have condemned as being state-sponsored human trafficking.
The Cuban doctor program, which is modeled after a similar program first initiated overseas by China, and which places Cuban physicians abroad under conditions that have been found to constitute Human Trafficking, features:
(1) Up to 95% of the doctors' salary is retained by the Government of Cuba.
(2) Cuba seizes the passports and medical credentials of the physicians it sends abroad, making it impossible for them to resign or take other employment.
(3) Cuban doctors are forced to volunteer for such positions; otherwise, they or their families could lose their jobs,. or be otherwise targeted by the regime.
(4) In some cases, Cuban doctors are ordered to withhold necessary medical treatment of Opposition figures, and injured protestors.
The money earned by these programs, which return several billion dollars to Cuba's treasury each year, are used to fund that country's domestic health system. Cuban nationals who administer these programs were recently banned from receiving visas to enter the United States, as part of the American campaign to eliminate them.
The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, cancelled Antigua's participation in the program, after the United States suggested that all the Eastern Caribbean, take such steps, due to the injuries to basic Human Rights that it inflicts upon the Cuban physicians who are compelled to participate. Clearly, PM Skerrit has chosen to follow his Chinese and Cuban sponsors, and defy U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio, notwithstanding that the program is, in essence, a classic example of human trafficking.
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