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Speaking Cotton — A New Film on Forced Child Labour
A new film about forced child labour in the cotton industry in Uzbekistan was released in December.
Speaking Cotton, a film by Stefanie Trambow and Erik Malchow, portrays the ongoing exploitation of children in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields. In German and Russian, with English subtitles.
Kids Hard At Work In Uzbekistan’s Cotton Fields
For years, Uzbek authorities have denied widespread reports that children are sent to the fields to pick cotton every harvest season.
Now viewers can see for themselves, thanks to video footage collected by human rights activists and sent to RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service. There is no denying that the school-age children in the video are picking cotton [...]
Clinics Empty as Medical Personnel Forced to Pick Cotton
An article about the decline of health care in Uzbekistan at EurasiaNet opens with an explanation for one of the devastating impacts on health care every year during the cotton season: all the medical personnel are forced out to the fields, leaving their clinics behind:
By the time Saidburkhan, a traditional healer from a small [...]
Primitive Living Conditions for Children Picking Cotton in Uzbekistan
Recent photos obtained by the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights expose the starkly promitive living conditions for children labouring in the cotton harvest in Uzbekistan.
These photos, taken in October in Kashkadarya region, Uzbekistan show that children as young as 12 are picking cotton and living in primitive conditions for weeks during the harvest.
They are forced [...]
UNICEF Confirms Uzbek Government Invitation to Observe Child Labour
UNICEF representatives have been officially invited to Uzbekistan to conduct monitoring of reports of the use of child labor, Radio Ozodlik reported.
Jean-Michel Delmotte, the representative of UNICEF in Tashkent, confirmed that the proposal had come from the government of Uzbekistan, the Russian news agency Regnum reported. Delmotte said that the Uzbek authorities promised [...]
Uzbek Boy, 13, Struck by Car As He Returned Home from Cotton Fields
A young Uzbek schoolboy returning home at night from the cotton fields where he had laboured all day was struck by a car and seriously injured last month, and remains in a coma, the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA) reports.
Bakhodir Pardaev, age 13, a 7th-grader at School No. 24 in the [...]
How Many Children Are Working in the Cotton Fields in Uzbekistan?
Organizations working in the campaign against forced child labour have estimated the number of children working in the cotton fields to be from 1.5 million to 2 million. These estimates were made on the basis of extrapolation of numbers based on surveys of limited areas. Recently, two new sources became available which help confirm [...]
Uzbek Cotton Fair Nets $550 Million In Sales
Uzbekistan is reporting sales of some $550 million worth of cotton and textiles at the two-day International Cotton and Textile Fair held in Tashkent, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reports.
Some 330 companies from 38 countries reportedly sent representatives to the fair and those representatives bought a reported 600,000 tons of Uzbek cotton and [...]
Uzbek Farmer Commits Suicide After Failing to Meet State Quota
On September 14, a funeral was held for a farmer from Murzrabot district in the Surkhandarya region, who committed suicide, the Uzbek Service of the BBC reported.
According to accounts from other farmers and villagers, Ismail Turanazarov, age 50, had been reprimanded at a meeting in Murzrabot about the cotton harvest by the head of [...]
Students Go to Fields Along with Teachers
Not long after teachers were forced to go to the cotton fields in Uzbekistan to help bring in the harvest, their pupils from middle schools followed them.
The BBC Uzbek Service has received reports that children in the 6th grade who are 12 years of age have been forced to work in large numbers in the [...]
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REPORTS
Download 2010 SOAS Report What Has Changed
The production and export of cotton continues to be a major feature of the economy, politics and everyday lives of the people of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This report analyses the nature and causes of their use of child labour in the cotton sector.