Prostitution in Cuba has always been a legal profession, though it has periodically been regulated or repressed. Many Cubans do not consider the practice immoral.
Sex trafficking is a problem in the country. The country, and Havana in particular, has often been associated with prostitution in foreign eyes. A public debate followed concerning the relationship between the changes in the city's demographics and the levels of prostitution in the city. After the Spanish—American War , there were attempts to set up "zonas de tolerancia", effectively red-light districts for commercial sex.
However, they were not officially classified as prostitutes, but instead treated as criminals guilty of the crime of sodomy. A major industry grew up around them; government officials received bribes, policemen collected protection money. Prostitutes could be seen standing in doorways, strolling the streets, or leaning from windows". It drew upon a tradition of exoticising mixed-race Cuban women which originated in the work of male Cuban writers, artists, and poets.
Following the Cuban Revolution in , the new Cuban government saw prostitutes as victims of corrupt and foreign capitalism, [24] and viewed prostitution itself as a "social illness", a product of Cuba's pre-revolutionary capitalist culture, rather than a crime. In , pimping was outlawed. Prostitution itself remained legal, but the government, assisted by the Federation of Cuban Women , attempted to curb it.
A census of the sex industry was conducted in , identifying , prostitutes and 3, pimps. Women who wished to leave prostitution were given training courses and offered factory jobs. Most of the remaining private businesses on the island were nationalised.
