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The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) highlighted on Monday the high level of poverty on the island and the deterioration of its health system.
This is what emerged from the IV report “The State of Social Rights in Cuba”, elaborated by the Observatory of Social Rights (ODS), linked to the OCDH.
More than 70% of Cuban families live on less than 3.8 dollars a day, according to the report, and if a household is divided among three members, each one lives on 1.28 dollars a day, which is “below the World Bank’s poverty line,” explained Yaxys Cires, OCDH’s strategy director.
The report predicts that the biggest problem for the population is the food crisis plaguing the country, followed by the health crisis and the “Tarea Ordenamiento”, this year’s economic reform that involved monetary unification, price and salary increases, reduction of subsidies and a consequent devaluation of the Cuban peso and inflation.
The study was carried out with interviews to 1,141 people of both sexes and no maximum age range, coinciding with the social protests of last July in Cuba.
It reveals that those most affected by the crisis the country is going through are the elderly, followed by those who do not receive remittances and the unemployed.
Regarding health care, eight out of ten people surveyed could not get the necessary medicines in pharmacies due to shortages, according to the report, which also shows that 14% of these people got the medicines thanks to a remittance sent by a relative abroad.
Forty-five percent of the Cuban population had to deprive themselves of at least one meal during 2021, while 73% qualify their family’s food as deficient, with a supply book that only yields for the first ten days of the month.
The Caribbean island suffers from constant power outages and only one in five households receives continuous electricity supply, according to the document, and half of the population does not have drinking water on a permanent basis.
“The Cuban regime impoverishes and also oppresses,” said Yaxys Cires.
The Observatory of Social Rights (ODS) is an initiative of the OCDH that has been working since 2009 to document, record and investigate human rights violations in Cuba.
