Cotton Campaign
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Uzbekistan's Forced Labor Problem >
      • Reports
      • Chronicle of Forced Labor
      • Photos/Video
      • FAQs
    • Turkmenistan's Forced Labor Problem >
      • Reports of Forced Labor in Turkmenistan's Cotton Sector
    • Forced Labor Cotton in Other Countries
    • Contact
  • Countries
    • Turkmenistan
    • Uzbekistan >
      • Uzbek Forum Key Findings 2020
    • Governments >
      • What other governments can do
    • International Organizations >
      • What the World Bank and Asian Development Bank can do
      • What the International Labor Organization can do
    • Companies >
      • What companies operating in Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan can do
      • What companies that use cotton can do
      • What investors can do
  • Take Action
  • Media
    • Press Releases >
      • Independent Union Faces Intimidation
      • Turkmenistan 2020 Harvest
      • A Changing Landscape in Uzbek Cotton Production
      • Bennett Freeman Remarks at ILO Roundtable
    • News
    • Videos
  • Blog

Blog

Activists Oppose "Business as Usual"; Picket Uzbek-US Forum

9/28/2011

0 Comments

 
Twenty organizations today signed a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging the US government not to resume "business as usual" with Uzbekistan due to persistent and serious human rights problems such as torture and forced child labor.

The groups included human rights organizations Amnesty International USA, the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Freedom House, Freedom Now, and Human Rights Watch; labor unions AFL-CIO and labor rights groups International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF and The Child Labor Coalition as well as Tashkent-based organizations such as the Expert Working Group and the exile groups Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights.

The activists expressed concern over approval by the Senate Appropriations Committee that will allow a waiver of human rights restrictions under US law to enable US military assistance to the Uzbek government.

“We call on you to stand behind your strong past statements regarding human rights abuses in Uzbekistan,” the signatories said in their letter to Clinton. “We strongly urge you to oppose passage of the law and not to invoke this waiver.” The Obama administration has called on Congress to support the waiver to enable such assistance as bullet-proof jackets for Uzbek law-enforcers.

The language already approved on September 21 will likely be included in an eventual foreign operations bill voted on later this year, barring the unlikely case of any senator willing to hold up the whole bill over Uzbekistan.

In a separate action, about 60 activists staged a picket today in Washington, DC in front of the Hotel W, site of an all-day Annual Business Forum of the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce (AUCC).

Foreign Minister Elyor Ganiev as well as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Susan M. Elliott were scheduled to speak at the meeting, which included a number of high-level corporate executives from companies doing business with Uzbekistan, such as Honeywell, General Motors (GM), General Electric, and NUKEM.

Participants in the demonstration included the American Federation of Teachers, Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, the National Consumers League, the Solidarity Center and the Coalition of Labor Union Women. They were joined by Yusuf Sobirov and his fellow Uzbek emigre community members active in the Uzbek People's Movement (also known as the People's Movement of Uzbekistan).

Judy Gearheart, Executive Director of the International Labor Rights Forum, who helped organize the picket, told EurasiaNet, "We are wherever they are," referencing the AUCC meeting. "This [picketing] will not stop. We will be dogging them until the Uzbek government allows a high-level International Labor Organization delegation to enter Uzbekistan, and we will keep demanding accountability until the practice of forced child labor ceases."

Tashkent has not permitted the ILO to enter Uzbekistan to inspect the cotton fields during the harvest, and activists remain concern about numerous reports of student labor used this year, with children as young as 10 bussed to the fields. UNICEF has been doing a limited amount of observation, but has cautioned that this is not a substitute for the ILO's formal labor rights monitoring, EurasiaNet reported.

On their website notice of the meeting, the AUCC said that recent positive developments in US-Uzbek bilateral relations had been cause for expanding their annual meeting -- a likely reference to the waiver approved in the Senate Appropriations Committee and increasing engagement by the US with Uzbekistan for the sake of the Northern Distribution Network supporting the war in Afghanistan.

After the demonstration was publicized, the AUCC removed the detailed agenda from their website, but it can still be viewed here.

GM has been doing business for years in Uzbekistan and plans to open a new $521 million plant later this fall. Labor activists are concerned about reports that workers from some GM shops have allegedly been sent on "vacation," enabling them to be forcibly mobilized for the cotton harvest by the Uzbek government.

This article originally appeared on the blog Choihona at EurasiaNet.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2020
    January 2019
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2017
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    November 2007

    Categories

    All

CONTACT: Cotton Campaign Coordinator - c/o International Labor Rights Forum, 1634 I Street NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20006. 
+1 202-347-4100, cottoncampaigncoordinator [at] gmail.com
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Uzbekistan's Forced Labor Problem >
      • Reports
      • Chronicle of Forced Labor
      • Photos/Video
      • FAQs
    • Turkmenistan's Forced Labor Problem >
      • Reports of Forced Labor in Turkmenistan's Cotton Sector
    • Forced Labor Cotton in Other Countries
    • Contact
  • Countries
    • Turkmenistan
    • Uzbekistan >
      • Uzbek Forum Key Findings 2020
    • Governments >
      • What other governments can do
    • International Organizations >
      • What the World Bank and Asian Development Bank can do
      • What the International Labor Organization can do
    • Companies >
      • What companies operating in Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan can do
      • What companies that use cotton can do
      • What investors can do
  • Take Action
  • Media
    • Press Releases >
      • Independent Union Faces Intimidation
      • Turkmenistan 2020 Harvest
      • A Changing Landscape in Uzbek Cotton Production
      • Bennett Freeman Remarks at ILO Roundtable
    • News
    • Videos
  • Blog