All Cubans know that after a child becomes 11 years old, he or she is sent far from home for between 45 and 60 days per year, to work in the fields day and night without pay. This is no summer camp like in America. Children are subjected to harsh and unsanitary living conditions. But food is so scarce and of such poor quality that the government often must reduce the number of days of work. Promiscuity is rampant in the camps.
Children often return with venereal diseases and pregnancies as well as lice and parasites.
Apparently, it is fine with him, Reno and Meissner who are so adamant for Eli n to return to that environment. In the January issue of Cuba Free Press, independent journalist Jaime Leigournier points out that while the Cuban government publicly claims support of the paternity rights of Elian's father, the same government refuses recognition of paternity rights of the parents of Cuban children as a matter of course. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans living on this island are unable to invoke these rights when their children are taken from them by the Cuban government to be sent to schools in the countryside or to accept 'scholarships' far away from their families and without their consent. Disregarded is the fact that Eli n's father is not allowed by Castro to express his true feelings and come to the U.S. with his family. Eli n's dead mother's body.