utes are young professionals who cannot make a living on the wages fixed by the government, and these features of the shadow economy may be implicated in the drop in secondary-school and college enrollments. Another difference between prostitution in Cuba then and now is that today it does not seem to carry moral opprobrium. Instead, it is seen as "necesidad--a necessity" (Curtis 7), given the state of Cuba's economy.
Castro's regime formally introduced government-sponsored food rationing in 1962, which fostered black-market activity (Otero and O'Bryan 35). As a Soviet client for decades, Cuba was positioned for foreign trade and/or aid that was largely unavailable from the USA. In 1990, when the USSR collapsed, Cuba was suddenly obliged by former bloc trading partners to come up with hard currency. Castro responded with the Special Period in a Time of Peace program, which was formally intended to "equalize sacrifice" (Rosenberg 53) and aimed at agricultural self-sufficiency/import substitution, and because unsuccessful, led to food shortages (Leogrande and Thomas 331f). In 1994, Castro heard cries of "we are hungry" from local crowds (Bengelsdorf 29).
These conditions seem to have been the real impetus for revitalization of tourism and other market reforms, among them the right of small farmers to sell surplus produce in local markets, a practice permitted, then prohibited, in the 1980s (Rosenberg 52ff). The reintroduction of farmers' markets, together with the lifting of a ban on paladares, or home-based restaurants, in the mid-1990s seems to have reduced shortages (Otero and O'Bryan 39). However, as of the mid-1990s, managers in Cuba's reemerging hospitality industry were reporting limited food supplies for their (resort-priced) hotels (Simon 34).
Unhelpful in this regard were efforts in the US to undermine the regime's efforts to reverse its problems. Members of Congress hostile to the Castro regime appear to have smelled b...