Have you been reading all the news about the Uzbek dictator's daughter and how labour and human rights campaigners were able to convince the organizers of Fashion Week to cancel Gulnara Karimova's fashion show?

This seemed like an impossibility at one time, as Karimova was here last year and backed by powerful Fashion Week sponsor Mercedes Benz. Yet the organizers responded to the pleas of the cotton campaign and disinvited this symbol of Uzbek repression.

There's much more we need to do to raise awareness and get action to stop the sourcing of Uzbek cotton by Western companies that help prop up Uzbekistan's dictatorship.

During Fashion Week (September 8-15), if you live in the New York area, you can take part in a picket in New York to urge the apparels industry to pledge to refrain from sourcing their cotton in Uzbekistan.

You can also call on Cipriani, the events space where Uzbek dictator's daughter Gulnara Karimova is now rescheduling her disgraced fashion show, not to provide her a space either. (Cotton campaign protests have been successful in getting IMG, the organizers of Fashion Week, to cancel her show at Lincoln Center).

Already 60 brands and a major industry association have pledged not to source cotton in Uzbekistan as forced child labour is used there, thanks to the work of Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN). The International Labor Rights Forum (ILHR) has already successfully petitioned Gymborree, A Child's Place and other companies recently who have responded to thousands of signatures and changed their policies.

Campaigners are looking for more signatures for new campaigns now addressing these brands:

o Forever 21

o Aeropostale

o Urban Outfitters

o Toys 'R Us

If you're a parent of children or teenagers like me, you know at this back-to-school time these are exactly the shops that your kids go to for clothes, accessories and toys. So sign the petition and tell your children that kids just their age are forced to miss school and work in the cotton fields. If you have a teen aged 13 or older, they can help raise awareness and sign these petitions as well at Change.org (you must be 13 or older to use this site) -- it's a great way to help young people understand the connected world they live in. High schools often ask students to find a community service project to work on -- learning about forced child labour and signing these petitions to the companies where they shop could be just such a project.

An unprecedented number of U.S. and European apparel companies and a major industry association have signed a pledge to calle for the elimination of forced child labour in Uzbekistan, the Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN) reports.

More than 60 of the world’s best known apparel companies and brands as well as the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA), which represents more than 800 brands, have signed a pledge not to knowingly source Uzbek cotton harvested using forced child labor.

These companies will maintain this pledge until the elimination of this practice is independently verified by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). RSN is coordinating the pledge, which is published on its website.

Company signatories include:

adidas Group (adidas, Reebok, Taylor-Made, adidas Golf); ANN INC. (Ann Taylor, LOFT); Brooks Sports, Inc.; Burberry; C&A; Carrefour; Carter's (Carter’s, OshKosh B'gosh); Columbia Sportswear Company; Eddie Bauer LLC; EILEEN FISHER; H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB; J.Crew; Kohl's Department Stores, Inc.; Levi Strauss & Co.; Li & Fung Limited; Liz Claiborne Inc.; Macy's Inc.; New Balance; Nordstrom Product Group; Peacocks Stores Ltd (Peacocks London, Pearl Lowe for Peacocks, By Design); PPR Group (Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, PUMA, Volcom, Redcats); PVH Corp.; Target Corporation; The TJX Companies, Inc.; The Jones Group; VF Corporation; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (ASDA, Better Homes & Gardens Canopy, Faded Glory, George, Home Trends, Mainstays, No Boundaries, Puritan, Sam’s Club, White Stag, Your Zone); The Walt Disney Company.

The pledge builds on efforts begun in 2004 by a number of US, European, and Uzbek advocacy groups to stop the scourge of forced child labour in Uzbekistan.

“I commend these companies for making this public commitment and sending a message about sourcing all aspects of their products ethically,” stated Patricia Jurewicz, director of RSN. RSN, a project of As You Sow (www.asyousow.org) addresses human rights violations and environmental destruction in the supply chains of consumer products at the raw commodity level. RSN supports network participants in leveraging their influence to achieve measurable solutions in the areas of conflict minerals and child slave labor.

For more information, visit RSN's website: http://www.sourcingnetwork.org/the-cotton-pledge/

Children as young as 13 are already being forcibly sent to work in the cotton fields, the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights reports.

As the pressure mounts to harvest more cotton given high prices on the global market and droughts in Uzbekistan, since September 10, school-age children have already been mobilized to work in the cotton fields.

According to a report from monitors in the Khorezm province, students from the 8th and 9th grades (13-14 years of age) of all the district schools of the province have been sent to pick cotton. The children must assemble at their school yards and are taken to the nearest cotton fields under the supervision of their teachers.

An 8th grader who did not give his name told a correspondent that his teachers told the students to come to class without their textbooks, and to bring food and water with them. The distance from the school to the field was about 5-6 kilometers. In most cases, the children are hiking to the fields on foot, but some schools have organized mini-buses.

Over the weekend of September 10-11, children worked 8-9 hours each day with just a short break for lunch. On September 10, the children were paid 100 soums per one kilogram of cotton, and on the next day, they were paid 12 soums, which is approximately 4-5 cents per kilo.

Several days previously, trade schools and academies for older teen-agers were closed, and the students were sent to live and work in fields at more remote locations.

So far we can see that in the 2011 cotton harvest, just as in 2010, school-age children are being removed from classes and taken to pick cotton, and the low rate of pay for the children remains the same -- the equivalent of just 4-5 cents per kilo.

Uzbekistan has signed the International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention that establishes a minimum age for children to work at age 15, with 14 allowed in some exceptional circumstances. But their labour should not be forced, nor should the age be as low as 13. No work must be permitted at the expense of their schooling.

After IMG, the organizers of New York City's Fashion Week decided to cancel the show of Gulnara Karimova over her association with the autocratic Uzbek regime, she began shopping for a more amenable venue.

Now the daughter of Uzbekistan's dictator Islam Karimov is planning to relocate her disgraced show to the posh restaurant and event space Cipriani, the New York Post reported:

Next up on the menu at Cipriani: hot potato!

Gulnara Karimova, the fashion-designing daughter of Uzbekistan’s ruthless dictator, aims to stage her runway show at upscale restaurant Cipriani after getting booted from Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, The Post has learned.

After protests from human rights groups and pickets by Uzbek émigrés about torture, political imprisonment and forced child labor, IMG said it was "horrified" and first ask Karimova to withdraw voluntarily. When she didn't, the Fashion Week organizers abruptly disinvited her.

IMG is said now to be in negotiations about a refund of $30,000 in rental fees, only a portion of the funds that Karimova had shelled out to display her Guli ethnic clothing line, says the Post.

As she was searching for a location, Karimova also reportedly reached out to a number of friendly foreign missions, including those of Russia, Spain and the United Arab Emirates. The Uzbek president appointed his daughter as ambassador to Spain and also envoy to UN organizations in Geneva.

Cipriani, which hasn't confirmed the event according to the Post, has itself been with the owner having pled guilty to $10 million in tax evasion.

Despite the cancellation, a coalition of labor and human rights groups vowed to stage their picket of Fashion Show on September 15 to call on the apparel industry not to source cotton in Uzbekistan.

Already more than 60 US and European companies and a major industry association have pledged not to use Uzbek cotton and have called on Tashkent to allow the International Labor Organization to inspect the cotton fields during the harvest, Responsible Sourcing Network reported.

This article originally appeared on Choihona at EurasiaNet.

An unprecedented number of U.S. and European apparel companies and a major industry association have signed a pledge to calle for the elimination of forced child labour in Uzbekistan, the Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN) reports.

More than 60 of the world’s best known apparel companies and brands as well as the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA), which represents more than 800 brands, have signed a pledge not to knowingly source Uzbek cotton harvested using forced child labor.

These companies will maintain this pledge until the elimination of this practice is independently verified by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). RSN is coordinating the pledge, which is published on its website.

Company signatories include:

adidas Group (adidas, Reebok, Taylor-Made, adidas Golf); ANN INC. (Ann Taylor, LOFT); Brooks Sports, Inc.; Burberry; C&A; Carrefour; Carter's (Carter’s, OshKosh B'gosh); Columbia Sportswear Company; Eddie Bauer LLC; EILEEN FISHER; H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB; J.Crew; Kohl's Department Stores, Inc.; Levi Strauss & Co.; Li & Fung Limited; Liz Claiborne Inc.; Macy's Inc.; New Balance; Nordstrom Product Group; Peacocks Stores Ltd (Peacocks London, Pearl Lowe for Peacocks, By Design); PPR Group (Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, PUMA, Volcom, Redcats); PVH Corp.; Target Corporation; The TJX Companies, Inc.; The Jones Group; VF Corporation; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (ASDA, Better Homes & Gardens Canopy, Faded Glory, George, Home Trends, Mainstays, No Boundaries, Puritan, Sam’s Club, White Stag, Your Zone); The Walt Disney Company.

The pledge builds on efforts begun in 2004 by a number of US, European, and Uzbek advocacy groups to stop the scourge of forced child labour in Uzbekistan.

“I commend these companies for making this public commitment and sending a message about sourcing all aspects of their products ethically,” stated Patricia Jurewicz, director of RSN. RSN, a project of As You Sow (www.asyousow.org) addresses human rights violations and environmental destruction in the supply chains of consumer products at the raw commodity level. RSN supports network participants in leveraging their influence to achieve measurable solutions in the areas of conflict minerals and child slave labor.

For more information, visit RSN's website

Children as young as 13 are already being forcibly sent to work in the cotton fields, the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights reports.

As the pressure mounts to harvest more cotton given high prices on the global market and droughts in Uzbekistan, since September 10, school-age children have already been mobilized to work in the cotton fields.

According to a report from monitors in the Khorezm province, students from the 8th and 9th grades (13-14 years of age) of all the district schools of the province have been sent to pick cotton. The children must assemble at their school yards and are taken to the nearest cotton fields under the supervision of their teachers.

An 8th grader who did not give his name told a correspondent that his teachers told the students to come to class without their textbooks, and to bring food and water with them. The distance from the school to the field was about 5-6 kilometers. In most cases, the children are hiking to the fields on foot, but some schools have organized mini-buses.

Over the weekend of September 10-11, children worked 8-9 hours each day with just a short break for lunch. On September 10, the children were paid 100 soums per one kilogram of cotton, and on the next day, they were paid 12 soums, which is approximately 4-5 cents per kilo.

Several days previously, trade schools and academies for older teen-agers were closed, and the students were sent to live and work in fields at more remote locations.

So far we can see that in the 2011 cotton harvest, just as in 2010, school-age children are being removed from classes and taken to pick cotton, and the low rate of pay for the children remains the same -- the equivalent of just 4-5 cents per kilo.

Uzbekistan has signed the International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention that establishes a minimum age for children to work at age 15, with 14 allowed in some exceptional circumstances. But their labour should not be forced, nor should the age be as low as 13. No work must be permitted at the expense of their schooling.

After IMG, the organizers of New York City's Fashion Week decided to cancel the show of Gulnara Karimova over her association with the autocratic Uzbek regime, she began shopping for a more amenable venue.

Now the daughter of Uzbekistan's dictator Islam Karimov is planning to relocate her disgraced show to the posh restaurant and event space Cipriani, the New York Post reported:

Next up on the menu at Cipriani: hot potato!

Gulnara Karimova, the fashion-designing daughter of Uzbekistan’s ruthless dictator, aims to stage her runway show at upscale restaurant Cipriani after getting booted from Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, The Post has learned.

After protests from human rights groups and pickets by Uzbek émigrés about torture, political imprisonment and forced child labor, IMG said it was "horrified" and first ask Karimova to withdraw voluntarily. When she didn't, the Fashion Week organizers abruptly disinvited her.

IMG is said now to be in negotiations about a refund of $30,000 in rental fees, only a portion of the funds that Karimova had shelled out to display her Guli ethnic clothing line, says the Post.

As she was searching for a location, Karimova also reportedly reached out to a number of friendly foreign missions, including those of Russia, Spain and the United Arab Emirates. The Uzbek president appointed his daughter as ambassador to Spain and also envoy to UN organizations in Geneva.

Cipriani, which hasn't confirmed the event according to the Post, has itself been with the owner having pled guilty to $10 million in tax evasion.

Despite the cancellation, a coalition of labor and human rights groups vowed to stage their picket of Fashion Show on September 15 to call on the apparel industry not to source cotton in Uzbekistan.

Already more than 60 US and European companies and a major industry association have pledged not to use Uzbek cotton and have called on Tashkent to allow the International Labor Organization to inspect the cotton fields during the harvest, Responsible Sourcing Network reported.

This article originally appeared on Choihona at EurasiaNet.

Starting on September 5, students from the ages of 14-17 at schools in the Surkhandarya region have been sent to the fields to pick cotton, the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights reported on September 8.

Since the Soviet era inn Uzbekistan, middle school consists of grades 1-9. Children start school at the age of 7, although parents often take them earlier, at age 6.

High schools do not have grades 10 through 12. Instead, after 9th grade, students go to trade schools or academies, where they study for three years, that is, from age 14 or 15 through age 17. After that, they may go on to university.

Thus, the children being taken out of schools called "colleges" in Uzbekistan today are from the ages of 14-17, and are the equivalent of high-schoolers.

These students aged 14-17 are sent first to the fields, and usually live on the farms while they pick cotton. Then younger children are usually brought two weeks later to continue the harvesting of cotton.

According to Ulugbek, a first-year student of a teacher's college who was born in 1995 who gave only his first name, on September 5, students were sent to the remote Muzrabad district to pick cotton. They are being housed in a daycare center there. There are 32 students in Ulugbek's group, mainly girls. Each grade has 5 or 6 such groups; there are about 600 students total in the college.

According to Ulugbek, administrators from the college, along with local policemen, went to all the homes of students who had not been at school since September 1, and ordered them to go to the cotton harvest.

Ulugbek was surprised that neither teachers or police had shown interest in the students absent at the beginning of the school year. But as soon as the cotton season opened, authorities began to search for them.

Asked by a correspondent why the students were sent to a district so far from their homes, although there are also cotton fields in their own district, Denau,, Ulugbek replied:

Murzraba is a remote area in the steppes. It is very hard to run away from there. If they were being brought from home to a field close by, every day the teachers would have to go around to their homes, rounding up the students. But if they are taken off to the steppes, they will be under observation.

According to Ulugbek's younger brother, Rasul, age 13, school children in the village will be taken to the cotton fields:

Mama said that the first harvest has already ended in our district. The second harvest is starting. Usually children are taken from school to the fields for the third harvest, when all the highest quality cotton is already picked. Adults earn money for the highest sort of cotton. When there is less cotton remaining, and it is harder to pick, then the school-children are sent.

Rasul is a 7th-grader who attends School No. 30 in Denau District in Surkhandarya province.

He and others who spoke to our correspondent had no doubt that school-children would be sent to pick cotton.

According to a report from Jizzak district, college students were to be sent to the fields on September 10.

Starting on September 5, students from the ages of 14-17 at schools in the Surkhandarya region have been sent to the fields to pick cotton, the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights reported on September 8.

Since the Soviet era inn Uzbekistan, middle school consists of grades 1-9. Children start school at the age of 7, although parents often take them earlier, at age 6.

High schools do not have grades 10 through 12. Instead, after 9th grade, students go to trade schools or academies, where they study for three years, that is, from age 14 or 15 through age 17. After that, they may go on to university.

Thus, the children being taken out of schools called "colleges" in Uzbekistan today are from the ages of 14-17, and are the equivalent of high-schoolers.

These students aged 14-17 are sent first to the fields, and usually live on the farms while they pick cotton. Then younger children are usually brought two weeks later to continue the harvesting of cotton.

According to Ulugbek, a first-year student of a teacher's college who was born in 1995 who gave only his first name, on September 5, students were sent to the remote Muzrabad district to pick cotton. They are being housed in a daycare center there. There are 32 students in Ulugbek's group, mainly girls. Each grade has 5 or 6 such groups; there are about 600 students total in the college.

According to Ulugbek, administrators from the college, along with local policemen, went to all the homes of students who had not been at school since September 1, and ordered them to go to the cotton harvest.

Ulugbek was surprised that neither teachers or police had shown interest in the students absent at the beginning of the school year. But as soon as the cotton season opened, authorities began to search for them.

Asked by a correspondent why the students were sent to a district so far from their homes, although there are also cotton fields in their own district, Denau,, Ulugbek replied:

Murzraba is a remote area in the steppes. It is very hard to run away from there. If they were being brought from home to a field close by, every day the teachers would have to go around to their homes, rounding up the students. But if they are taken off to the steppes, they will be under observation.

According to Ulugbek's younger brother, Rasul, age 13, school children in the village will be taken to the cotton fields:

Mama said that the first harvest has already ended in our district. The second harvest is starting. Usually children are taken from school to the fields for the third harvest, when all the highest quality cotton is already picked. Adults earn money for the highest sort of cotton. When there is less cotton remaining, and it is harder to pick, then the school-children are sent.

Rasul is a 7th-grader who attends School No. 30 in Denau District in Surkhandarya province.

He and others who spoke to our correspondent had no doubt that school-children would be sent to pick cotton.

According to a report from Jizzak district, college students were to be sent to the fields on September 10.

After protests from human rights and labour groups about the use of forced child labour in Uzbekistan's cotton industry and grave human rights violations including torture, imprisonment and censorship, IMG, the model agency organizing New York's Fashion Week have cancelled the participation of Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Uzbekistan's notorious dictator Islam Karimov, the New York Post reported today.

“As a result of concerns raised, we have canceled the Guli show on September 15th,” a spokesman for the Fashion Week producer said today.

Karimova had been expected to show her "Guli" line of ethnic clothing on September 15.

Meanwhile, the Fashion Week sponsors, Mercedes Benz, told the Post they had nothing to do with chosing the Guli line for the show:

“We have no influence on the contents of the fashion show or the program itself,” said Han Tjan, a spokesman for Mercedes. “We’re just sponsoring. If you’re the sponsor of the football game, you can’t decide who is playing.”

But Karimova participated in the Fashion Week show last year, just as children were being forced to pick cotton in Uzbekistan. At that time, the fashion press gushed about Karimova's many accomplishments from academia to entrepreneurship.

Mercedes Benz, long in business in Uzbekistan, started an $8 million joint venture with Uzbekistan to manufacture city buses last year.

IMG is to be congratulated for immediately doing the right thing as soon as they learned about the controversy involved and heard the protests from NGOs over Uzbekistan's awful human rights record.

But how exactly did Karimova get invited to the show -- last year and this year? Was Uzbekistan's relationship with Mercedes Benz involved at all? Karimova is already notorious for buying herself good will and positive publicity with charitable contributions as she did for the amFAR Cannes AIDS benefit. Reporters need to ask questions about how this highly controversial Uzbek figure ended up on the schedule at Fashion Week in the first place.