EU Opts to Keep Trade Preferences for Uzbekistan

Non-governmental campaigners against forced child labour in Uzbekistan have run up against some obstacles in getting the European Union on board to pressure Tashkent to stop this pernicious practice.

The European Commission has opted to maintain trade preferences for Uzbekistan under its Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, despite clear evidence of the use of forced child labour in the cotton industry in Uzbekistan. This seems to be a very explicit political expediency on the part of the European Union.

Anti-Slavery International. the Uzbek-German Human Rights Forum and other NGOs, have been writing protests to the European Commission for some time, trying to get the attention of European leaders regarding their obligation to refrain from doing business with countries
that exploit child labour.

As Anti-Slavery International said in a July 27 statement, they wrote to José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, on April 11, 2011, asking the EU to remove trade preferences because of the ongoing use of forced labour in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is the third-largest exporter in the world, yet uses hundreds of thousands of school-children to pick cotton each autumn, keeping them from school.

"Much of the cotton harvested by children in slavery makes its way to the European Union as garments producted in Bangladesh," says
Anti-Slavery International.

After three months, the campaigners got a response -- and from a fairly high-level official:


Andra Koke, head of Trade and Development at the European Commission Directorate General of Trade, in a letter sent on behalf of the President of the European Commission, said:“The Commission attaches great importance to supporting agricultural reforms in Uzbekistan, in particular the restructuring of the Uzbek cotton sector and the introduction of mechanical cotton harvest, in order to support the implementation of labour standards.”

The letter explained that the European Commission would act, however, if the International Labour Organization (ILO), the international body responsible for global labour standards, was able to “clearly prove” “serious and systematic” violations of ILO conventions on forced and child labour.

The main purpose of the EU stance seems to be to gradually eliminate child labour in Uzbekistan while maintaining close political and economic relations with Tashkent and "keeping the communication channels with the authorities" open.

Yet, somehow, the urgency of the requirement for state parties to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions to immediately eliminate the worst forms of forced child labour seems to have gotten lost in the bureaucratic shuffle . The EC letter talks about "child labour" in a more general way, so that the urgency is lost, and the gradualistic approach can be justified.

There's also a troubling indication that mechanization of labour will be the solution to the government-driven problem of the mass mobilization of both adults and children in state-controlled agriculture. This also raises troubling issues of whether EU companies are looking to sell agricultural equipment to Uzbekistan.

A most troubling aspect of the EC communication is the shifting of the burden of validation of the known problem of forced child labour in Uzbekistan on to the ILO. As Anti-Slavery International notes in its statement:


The letter explained that the European Commission would act, however, if the International Labour Organization (ILO), the international body responsible for global labour standards, was able to “clearly prove” “serious and systematic” violations of ILO conventions on forced and child labour.

The ILO has not been invited by Uzbekistan to monitor the cotton harvest but in June expressed its “serious concern at the insufficient political will and the lack of transparency of the ( Uzbekistan ) Government to address the issue of forced child labour in cotton harvesting". An ILO Committee of Experts report earlier in the year also voiced "deep concern... about the systemic and persistent recourse to forced child labour in cotton production".

The same government that is in fact engaged in "serious and systematic violations of ILO conventions" is not inviting in the ILO precisely to cover up that fact -- and the demand for ILO "proof" is merely a vicious circle that leads nowhere as Tashkent doesn't admit the ILO to inspect the fields in Uzbekistan.

In fact, there is ample concern expressed in existing ILO reporting and plenty of NGO reports document the use of forced child labour. UNICEF's program last year to mitigate the use of forced child labour in some provinces constitutes a tacit admission that the problem is severe.

Joanna Ewart-James, Anti-Slavery International’s Supply Chain Co-ordinator, said:


“The European Commission is wilfully ignoring the reality of state-sponsored forced child labour in Uzbekistan . It is unacceptable to focus on modernisation, while rewarding Uzbekistan with trade preferences, when international law demands immediate action to stamp out slavery. By refusing to investigate the European Commission is putting cotton before children.”