[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 105 (Wednesday, June 16, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4564-S4565]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Rodriguez v. Pan American Health Organization
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise today to express significant
concern about the Biden administration's decision to file an amicus
brief in the case of Ramona Matos Rodriguez v. Pan American Health
Organization.
This case involves serious allegations that the Pan American Health
Organization facilitated human trafficking and regrettably places the
administration in a position in which it is undercutting efforts by the
victims of the Cuban dictatorship's forced labor schemes.
Now, let me be clear, I am a strong advocate for the Pan American
Health Organization and its mission strengthening health systems across
Latin America and the Caribbean. Given the significant impact of COVID-
19 on the region, PAHO's efforts are needed now more than ever, and I
have fought to ensure that the Pan American Health Organization has the
resources it needs to carry out its lifesaving work during the pandemic
and throughout a good period of time of my congressional career.
However, I also firmly believe that the Pan American Health
Organization must be held accountable for its past transgressions,
including the unacceptable role that it played facilitating a program
that subjected more than 10,000 Cuban medical professionals to forced
labor conditions in Brazil.
From 2013 to 2019, the Pan American Health Organization profited from
its participation in Brazil's Mais Medicos Program, an initiative that
allowed Cuba's dictatorship to earn income from trafficking doctors.
The Cuban regime's so-called foreign medical missions are nothing
more than human trafficking. In November of 2019, the United Nation's
Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery and the United
Nation's Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons raised concerns
that the Cuban regime's trafficking of medical professionals
constitutes forced labor and modern slavery.
In fact, the Department of State's last ``Trafficking in Persons''
report found the Cuban regime garnishes the wages of its medical
professionals that serve overseas, surveils them, confiscates their
passports so they can't
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leave anywhere, and retaliates against family members in Cuba if they
leave from the program. So if you send me abroad, don't pay me, get
money from the country that you send me from, take away my passport,
and retaliate against my family, that is the ultimate forced labor.
Cuba's dictatorship generated more than $6 billion in profit from its
forced labor schemes in 2018 alone as it trafficked tens of thousands
of Cuban medical professionals to some 60 countries.
The Pan American Health Organization's participation in the Cuban
dictatorship's human trafficking programs cannot be overlooked, and
accountability is urgently needed.
It is against this backdrop that I have reviewed the Biden
administration's amicus brief in Rodriguez v. Pan American Health
Organization. And while the brief addresses some of the technical
aspects of the case, it effectively does nothing--nothing--to condemn
Cuba's dictatorship for human trafficking or the Pan American Health
Organization's participation in those programs that were human
trafficking.
For over two decades, the United States has led the international
community in combating human trafficking. In 2000, the United States
enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act--something I was
involved with in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--which has set
a standard for countries around the world to strengthen efforts to
prosecute traffickers, increase protection for victims, and expand
foreign assistance programs. We have built a range of financial tools
to combat the human trafficking industry and its illicit profits. We
have spearheaded efforts to ensure that slavery-free supply chains--
slavery-free supply chains--that respect workers' rights and prevent
against forced labor conditions around the world become more and more a
reality.
The Biden administration squandered an opportunity in this brief, an
opportunity to support Cuban trafficking victims and an opportunity to
advance our extraordinary American leadership in combating all forms of
human trafficking and modern slavery. It is a major disappointment.
I urge the President and the Secretary of State to redouble efforts
to pressure Cuba to end this medical trafficking program and the many
other abuses it perpetrates against the Cuban people.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. TUBERVILLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Tuberville pertaining to the introduction of S.
2079 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. TUBERVILLE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.