In Uzbekistan, HRDs [human rights defenders] denouncing the use of forced child labour in the cotton fields were threatened, questioned and detained.

Among those facing repeated reprisals for her reporting was Elena Urlaeva.

Frontline has covered some of the past attacks on Urlaeva, including psychiatric internment which only ended after an international outcry.

In the past year, authorities have become more sophisticated in pressuring Urlaeva by constantly intervening in her family’s privacy to attempt to remove a small boy from her custody. She and her partner care for his nephew, as the boy’s mother has been unable to care for her son. So officials have continued to attempt to remove the child into state custody, using as a pretext the complaints filed by a pro-regime lawyer often found in cases harassing defenders/

Satirical Poster by Association for Human Rights in Central Asia

Demonstrators in France turned out on January 30th, President Islam Karimov’s 74th birthday, to call attention to the dictator’s many human rights violations.

The activists picked the Uzbek Embassy in Paris, but embassy staff refused to accept their petition or meet with the protesters, says fergananews.com.

Among the protesters were members of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, the Association of Christians Against the Death Penalty and Torture, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Amnesty International, the Fiery Hearts Club. They called for the release of all political prisoners in Uzbekistan.

Protest signs including a satirical poster (see above) showing Karimov’s face beaming like the sun over a toiling child forced to pick cotton and the slogan, “Work, Sonny, the Sun is Still High!”

Speaking Cotton, a film by Stefanie Trambow and Erik Malchow, portrays the ongoing exploitation of children in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields. In German and Russian, with English subtitles.

For years, Uzbek authorities have denied widespread reports that children are sent to the fields to pick cotton every harvest season.

Now viewers can see for themselves, thanks to video footage collected by human rights activists and sent to RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service. There is no denying that the school-age children in the video are picking cotton and carrying heavy sacks on their shoulders. Determining whether they were taken away from their studies or forced to work in the fields proves more difficult.

The human rights activists who provided the video, whose identities are being withheld for their protection, said one of the children identified himself as 10-year-old Otabek. Others look even younger.

Human-rights defenders and the region’s independent media, including the ferghana.ru news website, have reported that the children, as well as teenagers and college students, were all forced by the state to help harvest the country’s most valuable agricultural product.

Schools and colleges have been shut down in most parts of the country since mid-September, when the harvest season begins.

The footage was shot in Uzbekistan’s major cotton-producing regions, including the Ferghana Valley, Karakalpakistan Autonomous Republic, and the Khorezm and Qashqadaryo provinces.

One of the world’s major cotton producers, Uzbekistan has long been criticized for using what rights activist say is child labor during the two-month harvest season.

The widespread criticism has led some 60 clothing companies, including Gap, H&M, and Marks & Spencer to boycott Uzbek cotton until the country ends its practice of using children as cheap labor.

In September, the organizers of a New York fashion show canceled a runway presentation by Gulnora Karimova, the daughter of President Islam Karimov, amid protests by activists who claim her collection was made with Uzbek cotton harvested by children.

This week is the tail end of this year’s cotton harvest, and children are heading back to school to resume their studies.

By Shukhrat Bobojonov and Farangis Najibullah. Copyright (c) 2011. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

During the recent International Cotton and Textile Fair in Tashkent, not a single western buyer signed a contract for Uzbekistan’s cotton, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. This boycott demonstrates the strength of a pledge signed by more than 60 apparel manufacturers, brands and retailers to eliminate forced child labour in the cotton industry.

Jurewicz writes of the growing consumer demand for transparency:

Having buy-in throughout the entire global value chain, where all of the dots are connected, is essential. The time of transparency has come. Consumers and legislation are demanding it.

Consumers are demanding to know more about the goods they are purchasing and, thankfully, new technologies are being adopted to give this information to them right at the point of purchase.

US legislation is also starting to demand more transparency.

Read more here.

By the time Saidburkhan, a traditional healer from a small Uzbek town in the Ferghana Valley, arrived at work on a recent autumn day, his private clinic specializing in herbal medicine was packed. Three blocks away, a government-run hospital was empty – most doctors and nurses, under pressure from local authorities, were out in the cotton fields, fulfilling government harvest quotas.

Elena Urlaeva and Abdujalil Boymatov with signs calling for President Karimov's resignation in 2003. Photo by Uznews.net

Police have come to the home of Elena Urlaeva of the Human Rights Alliance in Tashkent and attempted to remove her 7-year-old foster child, Muhammad, the independent website uznews.net reported.

The aim of the visit was quite simple: he [the policeman] said he had been asked to take Muhammad Mashurov away to a children’s home. But he didn’t show me any proof that he had the right to take a child away from their family. It never occurred to me that a small child could be made a victim of such an unlawful and arbitrary procedure.

The boy is the nephew of Urlayeva’s partner, Mansur Mashurov.

In recent months, Urlaeva has been monitoring the use of forced child labor in the cotton fields and has taken on other injustices in this Central Asian dictatorship, such as the persecution of journalists.

From Choihona at EurasiaNet.org

The statement was made during a briefing for the press while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s was visiting Uzbekistan.

The State Department’s own reports don’t support this premise, nor does a letter from Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake sent to NGOs recently, says Goldstein:

So why does a senior U.S. official now believe Mr. Karimov’s pious statements, against all the evidence of the Uzbek dictator’s past actions and previous official U.S. statements and reports? Is it because the United States needs Karimov to keep supplies flowing to Afghanistan?

Young girl picking cottin in Kashkadarya, October 2011

UNICEF representatives have been officially invited to Uzbekistan to conduct monitoring of reports of the use of child labor, Radio Ozodlik reported.

Jean-Michel Delmotte, the representative of UNICEF in Tashkent, confirmed that the proposal had come from the government of Uzbekistan, the Russian news agency Regnum reported. Delmotte said that the Uzbek authorities promised to give him comprehensive assistance in organizing monitoring of the problem of child labor.

Publications by WikiLeaks of alleged classified diplomatic cables from the US Embassy in Tashkent indicate that UNICEF repeatedly tried to minimize the scale of the problem of forced child labor in Uzbekistan and argued against a boycott, EurasiaNet reported.

UNICEF has not made any comment about the WikiLeaks revelations.

Meanwhile, this year, as in past years child labor in the cotton harvest has been documented by local monitors. The Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists of Uzbekistan reported that in Kashkadarya province, fifth-graders were taken to harvest the cotton.

“The daily quota is 80-100 kilos. For each harvested kilo, 150 soums (about 5 cents) is paid,” Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group told Radio Ozodlik.

It is important to point out that while the Uzbek government decided to invite UNICEF to observe child labor, it has refused to invite an independent monitoring group from the International Labor Organization (ILO), however.

Uzbek authorities also continue to interfere with the monitoring of child labor by Uzbek human rights activists. In Koson district, two human rights activists from Kashkadarya were detained by police for monitoring the use of children in the cotton harvest.

In recent years, more than 60 Western companies have pledged not to buy Uzbek cotton in order to compel the government to cease the use of child labor, Responsible Sourcing Network reports. They include Wal-Mart, Marks & Spencer, the Gap, Tesco, Gymboree and others.

The Uzbek government continues to deny that children are forced to work in the harvest.

Response to Sept 27 HR Ltr on Uzbekistan