Cuba’s Labour and Social Security Minister Marta Elena Feito Cabrera stepped down after making controversial comments about beggars.
According to Associated Press, the Cuban minister resigned from her position on Tuesday, July 15, after facing backlash for saying that there are no beggars in the country.
Cuba’s presidency announced the resignation of the minister on X and said that Cabrera “acknowledged her errors and submitted her resignation.”
Cabrera on Monday in front of the National Assembly committee said, “We have seen people, apparently beggars, but when you look at their hands, look at the clothes these people are wearing, they are disguised as beggars, they are not beggars. In Cuba there are no beggars.”
She also claimed that people clean windscreens to earn money for drinking alcohol and criticised people who search for different material through garbage dumps, saying that they resell things and do not pay taxes.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, without naming the minister, criticised her, saying, The lack of sensitivity in addressing vulnerability is highly questionable. The revolution cannot leave anyone behind; that is our motto, our militant responsibility.”
The economic crisis in Cuba has created difficulties for many people and forced them to beg for money, clean windscreens, and scavenge through trash.
Unlike a few years ago, when despite poverty there was no begging and homelessness on the island due to benefits from the government that have been reduced in recent times.
