UNICEF Quietly Mentions — but Doesn’t Condemn — Forced Child Labour

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick | No Comments

You have to dig to the last page of a specialized newsletter — but it’s there — the new UNICEF-Uzbekistan Newsletter contains a single paragraph at the bottom of the final page of the newsletter on forced child labour:
During the period of 17 to 22 September 2011, 6 teams consisting of 14 [...]

Anti-Slavery International Brings 13,000 Signatures to EuroParliament

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick | No Comments

Anti-Slavery International, the London-based non-governmental organisation working to elminate all forms of slavery worldwide, brought 13,072 signatures to the European Parliament on December 6, urging that members of parliament reject legislation that would reduce tariffs on imports of cotton from Uzbekistan.
Founded in 1839, Anti-Slavery is the world’s oldest international human rights organisation.
Anti-Slavery spent a year [...]

UNICEF Confirms Uzbek Government Invitation to Observe Child Labour

Posted on October 24, 2011 by admin | No Comments

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 [...]

US Embassy, UNICEF Minimized Forced Child Labour, Argued Against Boycott

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick | No Comments

The new WikiLeaks dump of alleged diplomatic cables contains numerous dispatches from Tashkent with troubling new revelations about the downplaying of the issue of forced child labour in the cotton industry in Uzbekistan by both the US Embassy and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), apparently driven by the need to keep good relations with Uzbekistan.
The [...]

Uzbekistan Remains on US Watch List for Child Labor

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick | No Comments

The US State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has released its annual report titled Global Trafficking in Persons (G-TIP).
Uzbekistan is included in G-TIP as in past years, and remains on the Tier 2 Watch List due to failure to eliminate the state-sponsored practice of forced child labor in the cotton industry. [...]

Will Brussels Give Tashkent a Pass on Wide-Scale Child Abuse?

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Deirdre Tynan | No Comments

The European Union is mulling ways to expand its textile trade with Uzbekistan, a major cotton supplier. Rights activists are lobbying hard against the ratification of EU trade measures, asserting that adoption would encourage the continuing use of forced child labor in the Central Asian nation.
The European Council approved an amendment in February to the [...]

What You Can Do About Child Labour in Uzbekistan

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick | No Comments

Bama Athreya, President, GlobalWorks Foundation and Judy Gearhart, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Forum have co-authored an article on The Huffington Post,  one of the most widely-read publications on the Internet.
Titled What We Can Do on World Day Against Child Labor (June 12) — and we could add — on any day — the article [...]

Calls for International Investigation on Uzbek Child Labor

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick | No Comments

Labor and human rights groups at the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) conference this week called for an international investigation of forced child labor in Uzbekistan, the International Labor Rights Forum said in a statement on its website.
The investigation was called for at the ILO annual conference in Geneva by Anti-Slavery International and the International [...]

Employers and Unions at ILO Meeting Condemn Uzbek Child Labor

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick | No Comments

The International Trade Union Confederation  (ITUC) reported  that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) “heard disturbing reports from both workers and employers in regards to millions of children forced into from school into hazardous work in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan,” according to a statement on the trade unions’ website.
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the ITUC [...]

ILO Discusses Case of Uzbekistan

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick | No Comments

After reviewing the report from its Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, the International Labour Organization’s Committee on Application of Standards discussed the case of Uzbekistan on June 6, observers reported.
As a result of ongoing concerns about forced child labor in Uzbekistan, the ILO Committee will likely include a paragraph in [...]

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    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.

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