Combatting Forced Labour in Cuban Foreign Medical Missions
The Cuban Foreign Medical Missions (CFMM) programme has been the flagship initiative of the Cuban Government for decades, recruiting and deploying thousands of health professionals abroad and integrating international students into its medical training system. The benefits of this programme, which is part of Cuba's medical internationalism strategy, have been praised by Cuba and beneficiary countries alike, as it supports host States' efforts to ensure healthcare is provided in areas where it may be difficult to guarantee those services without such missions.
Yet Cuban doctors, who are part of those missions and a range of stakeholders, including United Nations (UN) experts, civil society organisations and journalists, have raised concerns about the working and living conditions of those doctors. Those concerns point towards practices amounting to exploitation of Cuban medical personnel as well as coercive and retaliatory measures against those who denounce these practices or seek to leave the missions.
The outputs present research undertaken by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law on the international human and labour rights standards with which CFMMs should align, as a basis for recommendations to Cuba, host countries and civil society.
The findings of this project are presented through:
- An analytical Report: Cuban Foreign Medical Missions: Challenges and Opportunities Through the Lens of International Human Rights and Labour Standards
- An executive summary outlining some key findings and recommendations
- An analysis of Bilateral Agreements regarding CFMMs
- A literature review presenting the state of the art of literature on labour exploitation in CFMMs
