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Clinton Heads to Uzbeki-beki-beki-stan-stan amid Rights Protests
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headed off to Uzbekistan this weekend as part of her tour of Central Asia which included a surprise visit to Afghanistan Thursday.
While chatting with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul yesterday, Clinton took time to joke about a recent humorous incident in the United States, when Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain [...]
Uzbek Boy, 13, Struck by Car As He Returned Home from Cotton Fields
A young Uzbek schoolboy returning home at night from the cotton fields where he had laboured all day was struck by a car and seriously injured last month, and remains in a coma, the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA) reports.
Bakhodir Pardaev, age 13, a 7th-grader at School No. 24 in the [...]
Uzbek Cotton Fair Nets $550 Million In Sales
Uzbekistan is reporting sales of some $550 million worth of cotton and textiles at the two-day International Cotton and Textile Fair held in Tashkent, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reports.
Some 330 companies from 38 countries reportedly sent representatives to the fair and those representatives bought a reported 600,000 tons of Uzbek cotton and [...]
Uzbek Farmer Commits Suicide After Failing to Meet State Quota
On September 14, a funeral was held for a farmer from Murzrabot district in the Surkhandarya region, who committed suicide, the Uzbek Service of the BBC reported.
According to accounts from other farmers and villagers, Ismail Turanazarov, age 50, had been reprimanded at a meeting in Murzrabot about the cotton harvest by the head of [...]
Students Go to Fields Along with Teachers
Not long after teachers were forced to go to the cotton fields in Uzbekistan to help bring in the harvest, their pupils from middle schools followed them.
The BBC Uzbek Service has received reports that children in the 6th grade who are 12 years of age have been forced to work in large numbers in the [...]
Uzbekistan Holds Cotton Fair Despite Ongoing Boycott
Uzbekistan has opened its seventh International Cotton and Textile Fair in Tashkent with some 330 companies from 38 countries sending representatives, even as others boycott the event, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reported.
The event’s website said that the “primary goal of such an endeavor is to further expand long-term cooperation with international organizations [...]
Anti-Slavery International Relaunches Cotton Crimes Campaign
As part of its Cotton Crimes campaign, the London-based Anti-Slavery International has produced a powerful video clip to capture the insidious link between consumption of goods in affluent countries and the forced child labour that produces them in countries like Uzbekistan.
Take a look at the video on Anti-Slavery’s website, leave a comment on their Facebook [...]
Uzbek Children Told to Buy Their Way Out of Cotton Harvest
The independent news site uznews.net reports that children are being offered a way to buy themselves out of the cotton harvest.
In the Yukkorichirchick district of Tashkent region, the authorities have informed parents that their young children will be excused from cotton harvesting duties if parents hand over payment of 20,000 soums (around US$8.00).
“People in my [...]
Picket US-Uzbekistan Business Forum September 28
Buoyed by the success of the picket to protest inclusion of Gulnara Karimova in New York’s Fashion Week, the International Labor Rights Forum is planning a picket next week in Washington, DC as Uzbekistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Elyor Ganiev arrives for meetings with the business elite in the capital.
The Central Asian nation [...]
Uzbek Activists Detained Photographing Child Cotton Pickers
Two Uzbek rights activists say they were detained by police for taking pictures of schoolchildren picking cotton in the southern Kashkadarya region, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reports.
Gulshan Karayeva and Nodor Ahatov, members of an unregistered Uzbekistan’s Human Rights society, were held by local authorities for 10 hours on September 15 while taking the photos.
“We saw the [...]
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REPORTS
Download 2010 SOAS Report What Has Changed
The production and export of cotton continues to be a major feature of the economy, politics and everyday lives of the people of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This report analyses the nature and causes of their use of child labour in the cotton sector.