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Stunning footage from the Uzbek-German Forum
Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights: 2009 cotton harvest
Beyond documentation of the youth and vulnerability of those exploited this past year, this footage shows so clearly what miserable work children are forced to do. You can hear in the audio the sounds of the pods and branches scratching their hands and tearing at their clothes.
Slave Nation: new report from the Environmental Justice Foundation
Downloadable here, the latest documentation from the U.K.-based advocacy group should put to rest any government denials of children’s involvement in the 2009 harvest. Incidentally, upon feeling (ever so slightly) more pressure from European governments and international organizations, Uzbekistan’s government has recently felt it necessary to step up just such denials (more on this [...]
The cost of cotton: no future
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that Uzbek college students are regularly being expelled for refusing to pick cotton.
With that kind of a black mark in their past, any expelled student has little chance of ever completing higher education at home, which leaves the most likely option for survival in a country with mass un- and [...]
Dubai defaults…on human rights
It wasn’t too much of a surprise to read that the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre bonds were placed on credit watch negative recently, after being downgraded to junk status in June. Is a business model built on willful, knowing exploitation of forced child labor really sustainable in any sense?
Maybe five years ago, traders could claim [...]
The UN Child’s Rights Convention is 20 years old (and Uzbek children are still out picking cotton)
It’s a trite formula for a story: note an anniversary of a worthy treaty/announcement/international agreement, then express regret that in spite of some laudable progress, look how far there is yet to go, throwing in a tear-jerking example or two. This past week, the 20th anniversary of the signing of the UN Convention on the [...]
Following the trail of Uzbek cotton: taking names
Where does the cotton go, and how can Western end-users avoid consuming it? This is a question that needs a lot more exploration. According to a recent press release, the cotton fair in Tashkent was a great success, pushing the slave-harvested commodity out and probably into goods that stock our shops. Reportedly, contracts were signed [...]
Cotton is in, but kids are still out
Today the Veritas human rights group in Uzbekistan distributed their preliminary report on this year’s cotton harvest, with some photos to accompany it. The report is not yet on the web, or in English, so I’ll post its most striking findings here. Activists from the group surveyed conditions in 11 provinces; they recently toured through [...]
The harvest is (mostly) in, but at what price?
This is the question posed earlier this month by the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia. That group’s press release of November 4 broke the stories of deaths and injuries suffered earlier in the harvest. More than just breaking news, the group points out the total complicity of institutions that, in a non-totalitarian society [...]
More retribution
This just in from the Rapid Response Group, a coalition of Uzbek human rights activists. Ganihon Mamakhanov, whose trial starts today, is a Fergana-based activist, arrested at the height of the cotton harvest (October 10) on trumped up charges after local police planted evidence on him. The implications are clear for those brave individuals trying [...]
Retribution
Uzbekistan’s government has never taken too kindly to those who would expose its crimes against its own people. The brave people documenting the forced labor of children in the cotton harvest are no exception. The BBC reports the latest violence against one of them here.
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