Cuban minister resigns after saying 'there are no beggars in Cuba'

Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera said people going through rubbish were doing so by choice to make "easy money".

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The minister had said there was no such thing as "beggars" in Cuba and people going through rubbish were, in essence, doing so out of choice to make "easy money", as she put it.

Her comments, made in a parliamentary session, were widely criticised by Cubans at home and abroad, and prompted a response from the island's president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. She resigned soon after.

Poverty levels and food shortages have worsened in Cuba as it continues to grapple with a severe economic crisis.

Both the public criticism her comments triggered and the public rebuke the minister received are unusual in Cuba, a country where anti-government protests are banned by law and open dissent can land critics in jail.