Photo: Taken from CiberCuba.
On July 14, 2025, during a session of the Standing Committees of the National Assembly of People's Power, the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera, categorically declared that in Cuba "there are no beggars," but rather people "in disguise" who "have sought an easy way of life to earn money and not work as required.".
These statements not only deny the existence of people experiencing homelessness or extreme poverty, but also reflect a deeply stigmatizing, punitive, and out-of-touch official view. The official didn't just downplay poverty; she erased it from the institutional discourse.
Denying structural poverty does not make it disappear.
Attributing the presence of people on the streets to a “life choice” is a way of deliberately ignoring the structural causes of social exclusion: unemployment, job insecurity, lack of housing, mental health disorders, addictions, or institutional abandonment.
By reducing these conditions to a simple “unproductive behavior”, the State avoids its responsibility and reinforces policies of control and punishment, instead of promoting real measures of support, protection and reintegration.
Stigmas that dehumanize
The official narrative not only avoids recognizing rights, but also reinforces classist and discriminatory stereotypes. Those who clean windshields are described as people who take advantage of the system, while others are accused of faking homelessness to avoid working.
This type of discourse not only dehumanizes, but also legitimizes the criminalization of poverty, by presenting the most vulnerable people as threats to social order and morality.
Is there genuine concern for the most vulnerable?
Following public outcry, the minister resigned in an attempt to quell the controversy. But her statements were not an isolated slip of the tongue, nor the product of a personal opinion: they reflect a state logic that prioritizes social control over the rights it claims to guarantee.
The problem isn't an "insensitive minister" or "unfortunate" comments. It goes far beyond homelessness: the real problem is a state that creates poverty and then punishes those who suffer from it.
Although the minister referred to the Agreement for the care of people with “wandering behavior” While presented as a social protection measure, in practice it institutionalizes a system of control, surveillance, and punishment. This policy criminalizes poverty and reinforces exclusion, without addressing its structural causes or guaranteeing fundamental rights.
From Cubalex, we warn about the disproportionate impact this measure has on the most vulnerable sectors: Afro-descendant people, women, people with psychosocial disabilities and other historically discriminated groups.
Where are the real answers to hunger, poverty, and exclusion?
To claim that those who survive on the streets are simply “illegal self-employed workers” is to turn a blind eye to the social suffering that permeates every corner. It is to render invisible the misery, abandonment, and helplessness endured by thousands of people in Cuba.
The questions remain unanswered:
– Where are the policies that guarantee access to housing, employment, and mental health?
– Where are the support and protection mechanisms for those who live in marginalization?
– Why does the Cuban state continue to ignore its duty to guarantee rights without discrimination?