Distributed by CubaNet
FROM CUBA:
MARIBEL WANTS TO BE A JINETERA
By Maria de los Angeles Gonzalez Amaro, Agencia de Prensa Independiente de Cuba (APIC)
HAVANA, September 18 (APIC). Are you, or are you not a youngster? You can hardly see the diminutive breasts and the hips not quite developed, not quite yet giving signs of life and splendor. That is how Maribel is... restless. Maybe it was because of the place where I met her, last March 12, a special day because it represented for me confronting one who aspires to being a jinetera, as it would be being a college graduate.
"I am hungry, watch this: I will star screaming, and they will take me somewhere for a bite to eat just to not listen to my screams."
And it was so. As if by magic, a policeman accompanied this little girl to a nearby food stand, and she returned later, her hunger appeased. I asked myself how is it that this young girl could be waited on by the policemen of the precinct at Zapata and "C" Street? It did not take long for me to understand that Maribel, at the tender age of 14, had already served a prison term at the juvenile detention center in Santiago de la Vegas.
It wasn't very hard in prison, because my teachers were "cheveres" (that's how young people call those who are understanding).
Through this child I understood the sad reality faced by our youth. It is not something to cry over, but to ponder. Our country is, and will be, different than the others, and because of this, this truth that hits us is beyond comparison. Those who engaged in prostitution were those who did it out of vice, or because they had no other alternative to solve their situation.
I never thought about talking about Maribel, because for me, it is a wound that bleeds just from touching it. But today, I couldn't contain myself, and she comes to my memory as a result of remarks about jobs, health and social work in Cuba, made in Stockholm on August 30, the third day of a World Conference against sexual explotation of children. I am not able to assert that in Cuba, these almost babies are not exploited, even though this island's government and those of Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Venzuela were accused of such.
The testimonies of juvenile prostitution are offered by the friends of Cuba who visit here, and also, was the result of research made by the Department of Sociology in Leicester, Great Britain. The protest of Cuban delegates will not go far, since there are many jineteras cruising the hotels in the island, and the government will jail a few, who as my Maribel, have not well developed buttocks. But those blessed by Aphropdite will continue to attract Canadians, Spaniards and Italians, even though Mrs. Vilma Espin, president of the Federation of Cuban Women, has no words to camouflage the truth about young Cuban women.