Frontline Defenders Condemn Attacks on Monitors of Forced Child Labour

Frontline Defenders, a UK-based human rights organization, has noted in its annual report that the problem of forced child labour continues in Uzbekistan:

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.