During the period of 17 to 22 September 2011, 6 teams consisting of 14 UNICEF staff members visited cotton fields in Fergana, Namangan, Andijan, Navoi, Bhukara, Khorezm, Karakalpakstan, Samarkand, Jizzak, Tashkent, Surkhandarya, and Kashkadarya regions. UNICEF’s observations regarding the use of children in the cotton fields were shared in the form of an update and a final report with the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. UNICEF continues to act and advocate at all levels of governance and society for the progressive elimination of child labour in cotton production.

The statement is couched in cautious terms so as not to actually make a formal finding and a condemnation about forced child labour.

Instead, UNICEF prefers to speak in positive terms about the “progressive elimination” of child labour.

While UNICEF quietly provides copies of its reports to the US and other governments, the report is not made available to the public.

Uzbek girl, 12, in Kashkadarya

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 gathering the 13,072 signatures using the popular petitions site change.org and other campaign sites, and through the use of a video, “End Cotton Crimes.” They persuaded pop singer Ricky Martin to endorse the effort, and also got ethical fashion bloggers and online magazines for the ethical consumer to post the link to the petition.

The campaigners hand-delivered the package of signatures to the European Parliament on December 7th.  MEP Catherine Bearder, a Liberal Democrat and supporter of anti-trafficking initiatives, invited to her office school-children who had written expressing their concern about their counterparts picking cotton in Uzbekistan.

As Anti-Slavery writes:

Shannon Harris aged 14, from Eastbourne said: “When I learnt what was going on in Uzbekistan, it was unbelievable. Students my age are supposed to be in school studying but are being forced to work in slavery picking cotton. Why is this still happening?”

The children were inspired by a lesson at school:

Neil Pittman, head of upper school at Bishop Bell, said: “After studying the UN Covention on the Rights of the Child, our pupils were shocked to hear that Uzbekistani children were forced by their government to work during the cotton harvest. The injustice of the situation was very clear to the pupils and they were concerned that cotton harvested by children may be used in the clothes they wear.”

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

“International law demands immediate action to stamp out slavery and the European Union must consistently work to end this abuse. By rewarding Uzbekistan with trade preferences the EU is ignoring the reality of state-sponsored forced child labour in Uzbekistan.”

Young girl picking cottin in Kashkadarya, October 2011

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 to give him comprehensive assistance in organizing monitoring of the problem of child labor.

Publications by WikiLeaks of alleged classified diplomatic cables from the US Embassy in Tashkent indicate that UNICEF repeatedly tried to minimize the scale of the problem of forced child labor in Uzbekistan and argued against a boycott, EurasiaNet reported.

UNICEF has not made any comment about the WikiLeaks revelations.

Meanwhile, this year, as in past years child labor in the cotton harvest has been documented by local monitors. The Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists of Uzbekistan reported that in Kashkadarya province, fifth-graders were taken to harvest the cotton.

“The daily quota is 80-100 kilos. For each harvested kilo, 150 soums (about 5 cents) is paid,” Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group told Radio Ozodlik.

It is important to point out that while the Uzbek government decided to invite UNICEF to observe child labor, it has refused to invite an independent monitoring group from the International Labor Organization (ILO), however.

Uzbek authorities also continue to interfere with the monitoring of child labor by Uzbek human rights activists. In Koson district, two human rights activists from Kashkadarya were detained by police for monitoring the use of children in the cotton harvest.

In recent years, more than 60 Western companies have pledged not to buy Uzbek cotton in order to compel the government to cease the use of child labor, Responsible Sourcing Network reports. They include Wal-Mart, Marks & Spencer, the Gap, Tesco, Gymboree and others.

The Uzbek government continues to deny that children are forced to work in the harvest.

Uzbek Children, Fall 2010, Uzbek German Forum for Human Rights

The US Embassy in Tashkent described Uzbek students’ annual sojourn to the cotton fields as a rite of passage and a fun social occasion where they play guitars and eat trail mix, discounting reports of NGOs about coerced labour and poor conditions. A Bangladeshi UNICEF official was concerned about the impact Western retailers’ boycott of Uzbek cotton over forced child labour was having on his homeland’s economy, where traders source cotton from Uzbekistan.

For various reasons, both the Guardian and the activist organization Wikileaks have released the remainder of the collection of more than 250,000 cables, including several hundred previously unpublished dispatches datelined Tashkent from the period 2007-2009.

Interestingly, the Embassy cites the state-controlled Uzbek Trade Union’s figure of 1.64 million school-age children involved in agricultural work, including cotton-picking. The report also acknowledged that the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey conducted in 2006 by UNICEF was flawed because it was not conducted during the cotton harvest season.

Yet the US seemed determined to reject the reports of local and international NGOs about exploitation of children, and preferred to get the story from the staff of international organizations on the ground in Uzbekistan — themselves sometimes compromised by their need to keep constructive relations with the Uzbek government in order to to maintain their very presence in this oppressive country.

According to a cable dated February 8, 2008, Mahbub Sharif, a Bangladeshi national who was then head of UNICEF in Tashkent said that when the Uzbek government was concerned about foreign criticism and asked for advice in how to handle the issue, he said “increased transparency on the child labour situation could help ease international pressure.” But he then claimed that child labour in Uzbekistan was “not much different than in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh” and “reflects pressures by families rather than the government.“ In fact, Uzbekistan’s profile is different than South Asian due to the state quota system — a factor Sharif is shown as acknowledging in other cables. Sharif suggested that the Uzbek government develop an action plan to ensure employment of school-aged children was in compliance with international standards.

The Embassy was impressed that “the Uzbeks have broached the issue at all with UNICEF and the International Labor Organization” (ILO) and felt this reflected “genuine concern” about the potential economic concern of boycotts ; the cable author added that “in our field observations the use of pre-teens such as depicted in last October’s BBC document is much more the exception than the rule.”

Other cables address claims by both the Uzbek government and foreign experts that Uzbekistan was moving away from cotton to other crops. The US relays the argument from officials of the Uzbek Ministry of Education that while school-children *did* in fact spend “several weeks” picking cotton, they ultimately had “as many classroom hours as students in the United States” due to six-day school weeks and fewer vacations. Even so, the dispatch writer said various sources had indicated that children worked from one to six weeks in the fields, and noted the reluctance of Uzbek officials to share child labour statistics.

In 2009, after five months of talks, UNICEF finally concluded an agreement with the government of Uzbekistan to work on a national action plan; according to a cable from April 9, 2009, UNICEF representative Sharif then counseled that boycotts would “derail further progress.” He was told the Uzbek government was “now considering” inviting an ILO representative and would meet one in Moscow if invited. (Tashkent has not invited the ILO to Uzbekistan to this day.)

Sharif continued to theorize with Uzbek officials about ways to reduce the exploitation of children — perhaps through greater mechanization. When it was explained that machinery damaged cotton and lowered its value, he suggested finding stronger strains of cotton to grow. The Uzbek government did not seem serious about changing anything regarding child labour, yet the UNICEF official continued to urge engagement. At a round table with international agencies and foreign embassies, the US cable author reported that “while UNICEF representatives allowed that the threat of an international boycott of Uzbek cotton might have encouraged the government to adopt legal reforms, they believed that such threats have outlived their usefulness.”

In a subsequent meeting reported by the post on October 8, 2008, Sharif was quoted as saying “the boycott was already negatively impacting textile producers in his home country” and that those supporting the boycott had to realize it affected more than just Uzbekistan

Despite NGO findings of coercion and intimidation, in a cable dated January 9, 2009, the Embassy still continued to report its belief that child labour was not forced, prefering to use the term “mobilized” versus “forced labour” and that school-children’s cotton picking was “an ingrained part of the local culture” and was an “exhausting rite of passage.”

Many students look forward to the annual mobilization to pack their guitars, trail mix-equivalent snacks, vodka (for university students), and head out to the farms. The work can be exhausting, but they make the best of it. Students sometimes have campfires and enjoy evening entertainment, which provide opportunities to mingle with members of the opposite sex more freely than at home.

Both the US Embassy and UNICEF have new representatives in Tashkent now — perhaps they can make up for their predecessors’ minimizing of the documented phenomenon of forced child labour. UNICEF conceded the problem in a presentation last year about a joint mitigation program with the Uzbek government to try to send older students to the fields, and later in the school year.

This article first appeared on Choihona at EurasiaNet.org.

The European Council approved an amendment in February to the EU’s Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Uzbekistan, extending customs and tariffs breaks to Tashkent and opening up European markets to Uzbek cotton. The European Parliament has yet to ratify the amendment.

At a hearing of the parliament’s International Trade Committee on June 21, the trade provision came under attack from civil society activists, who assail Tashkent for pressing tens of thousands of school-age youths into service during the planting and harvesting seasons.
“Such cooperation [with Uzbekistan] suggests that Europe is open to business with everyone whatever the terms of that business,” said Joanna Ewart-James, Supply Chain Program Coordinator at Anti-Slavery International. “Ninety percent of Uzbek cotton is picked by hand, with almost half being picked by state-sponsored forced child labor. Uzbekistan is not a country with which we should be doing business and clearly not with the cotton and related sectors.”

Ewart-James added that teachers and parents in Uzbekistan who complain about the deployment of child labor battalions in the cotton sector are often threatened with dismissal from their jobs. Meanwhile, children who resist are sometimes beaten or expelled from schools, or warned that their grades will suffer.

A British member of the European Parliament (MEP), Catherine Bearder, who sits on the International Trade Committee, described the use of children to pick cotton in Uzbekistan as “penal servitude on a massive scale.”

“To pass [this amendment] would clearly send the wrong message about what the EU stands for, the rights of people that we trade with,” Bearder continued. “By reserving our decision on this agreement we send a clear message that we are watching.”

Uzbekistan’s ambassador to the EU, Bakhtiyar Gulyamov, was invited to the International Trade Committee hearing, but did not attend. The European Parliament is due to vote on the amendment later this year.

During her appearance before the committee, Ewart-James called attention to Uzbekistan’s refusal to allow inspectors from the United Nation’s International Labor Organization (ILO) to monitor the cotton harvest. “Only once the situation is assessed and understood can a suitable and sustainable solution be developed and implemented,” she said. “Despite Uzbekistan being double footnoted, which is ILO speak for a serious case, Uzbekistan has still failed to take its obligations seriously and invite in an ILO mission.”

According to Ewart-James more than 70 companies have already taken action to protest against the use of forced child labor to collect cotton. “These companies would welcome the support of the European Parliament as they try to reduce the risk to which their supply chains are exposed to illegal and abhorrent practices such as those found in the Uzbek cotton industry,” she said.

Speaking on behalf of the European Commission, Holder Standertskjold-Nordenstam, defended the amendment, saying it is not designed to leverage human rights improvements. He cautioned that turning up the pressure on Uzbekistan could prompt Tashkent to sell its cotton elsewhere.

“There have been calls for the EU to use the PCA amendment as, for want of a better word, ‘leverage’ — to persuade Uzbekistan to make concrete progress in eliminating the worst forms of child labor in the cotton sector. … [But] the protocol gives us no economic leverage to work with,” he said.

An EU investigation into the practice of forced child labor in Uzbekistan could backfire, he warned, noting that “the Commission relies on cooperation, transparency and dialogue as more efficient tools to achieve its objectives.”

Standertskjold-Nordenstam downplayed the notion that the EU’s adoption of a hard line on Uzbek child labor, including the imposition of sanctions, could bring about desired changes. “Close cooperation aimed at eradicating child labor might be the better option,” he added.

For any close-cooperation strategy to work, however, Tashkent would have to believe Brussels means what it says. At present, some MEPs say, Uzbek leaders are unlikely to take potential EU threats seriously. Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, a French MEP, told the International Trade Committee that the EU’s inability to secure permission for an ILO mission to visit to Uzbekistan, despite being aware of the “massive use of child labor in Uzbekistan,” shows that Tashkent believes the EU’s human rights agenda to be a “paper tiger.”

“We have an opportunity to make our [Uzbek] counterparts understand that they have to listen to what we are saying,” she added.

This article first appeared on EurasiaNet.

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 has a simple request to speak up about the use of children in the cotton industry in Uzbekistan:

School’s out for children across the country and we are pulling out our cool cotton T-shirts and shorts. Yesterday on World Day Against Child Labor, we might keep in mind that in some countries, when school’s out, the hard labor begins – and in one notable case, it is to pick the cotton that goes into our summer clothes.

This past week, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) held hearings on forced child labor in Uzbekistan. The Uzbek government denied the problem. The ILO, however, was not convinced; its Committee on Application of Standards called for the government to accept a high level investigative mission. The Committee’s decision came after a hearing earlier in the week where employers and trade unions from the US and Europe were strongly aligned in urging for an ILO monitoring mission to take a closer look after the welfare of Uzbek school children.

We all need to send messages to the Government of Uzbekistan that we won’t accept cotton produced with the sweat and tears of children.

MORE…

So get informed about the issue of child labor in Uzbekistan in the cotton industry by reading this web site.

Then we encourage you to send brief, politely-worded messages to the Uzbek government — send a link (here) to Bama Athreya’s and Judy Gearhart’s blog from  The Huffington Post.

You can write the office of President Islam Karimov or the Uzbek Foreign Ministry.

Sample wording:

Dear President Karimov,

I am concerned about an article I have read in The Huffington Post about the plight of children in Uzbekistan who are taken from school and forced to work in dangerous conditions in the cotton fields. We urge you to comply with Uzbekistan’s obligations under conventions of the International Labour Organisation to ensure that this practice cases, and call on you to accept the investigative mission of the ILO this fall during the harvest season to work toward the eradication of the worst forms of child labour.

Uzbek boy, 2010. (c) Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights

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 Labor Rights Forum.

“A high-level ILO monitoring mission would be the necessary first step in providing an independent credible assessment of the problem,” said the groups’ statement.

On the eve of the ILO conference, the Uzbek government hastily came up with several initiatives and statements to the effect that they could monitor their own compliance with their national action plan. At the ILO meeting, the government delegation proposed having a state-controlled trade union  monitor the cotton harvest.

The ILO’s Committee on Application of Standards issued a statement on  June 8 after a hearing earlier in the week, questioning the credibility of Uzbekistan’s own monitoring proposal and also called for the government to accept a high level ILO monitoring mission.

Speaking in Geneva, Brian Campbell, Policy Director at International Labor Rights Forum, said:

Uzbekistan’s intention to monitor its own harvest for a problem it denies is ludicrous. Such monitoring cannot be considered credible in a country where independent civil society is controlled and critical media muzzled. If the government has nothing to hide then it should allow the ILO access during the harvest.

More…

ituc-cis.org

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 said:

This Sunday [June 12] is World Day Against Child Labor, and the international union movement calls on Uzbekistan respect fundamental labour rights and to allow an independent committee under the auspices of the ILO to observe the next harvest.

Burrow said that Uzbekistan is one of the world’s largest exporters of cotton.

“We ask responsible retail clothing companies to find out where their
cotton is coming from, because we will be working with international
groups to track this terrible trade,” she said.

ILO Building, Geneva (c) keepps

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 its conclusions that will flag Uzbekistan as an egregious case of violations of ILO conventions including no. 182, “the worst forms of child labour.”

The delegation from the government of Uzbekistan included Botir Alimukhamedov, first deputy minister of labour and social protection, and the ubiquitous Akmal Saidov, director of the National Human Rights Centre, who is dispatched to every international meeting to reply to criticism of Uzbekistan’s human rights record.

The Uzbek officials countered the ILO Committee’s concerns by saying that it had national laws and action plans to implement ILO conventions nos. 182 and 138 on the worst forms of child labor. They also claimed that with a literacy rate of 99 percent and the government spending 10 percent of the GDP on education and health, along with compulsory education until the age of 12, the factors were not present for child labor in their country.

The Uzbek government also made the claim that high levels of GDP growth are usually associated with lower levels of child labor — a fact not independently confirmed for Uzbekistan — and cited a GDP growth figure of 8.5 percent, based on state statistics also not independently verified.

Employers organizations and trade unions countered with references to the  numerous and credible reports regarding the systemic mobilization of school children for the harvest.

Delegations from the usual allies of Uzbekistan made statements in support of Tashkent — Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Belarus, Russia, Singapore, Cuba, Venezuela, Pakistan and China –as well as the Uzbek state-controlled unions

Delegations from the governments of the EU states, US, and Canada as well as and workers from the US and Germany made statements in support of the employers and workers, i.e. expressed concern about ongoing reports of the use of forced child labour.

The Uzbek government delegation thanked the ILO Committee for its “cooperative spirit” and reiterated that it had only signed convention no. 182  just three years ago, and was working on implementing it with monitoring and prevention.

In their closing remarks, the employers and workers again reiterated their call for access to Uzbekistan of an ILO mission to assess the situation and for a  report to be made, and also called for technical assistance and work with the ILO IPEC program.

Some activists were concerned that if IPEC began working with the government of Uzbekistan first, this could preclude or delay the mission to Uzbekistan during the cotton harvest, and serve as a diversion from the Uzbek government’s need to tackle the issues in good faith.

The government of Uzbekistan has not responded to the ILO’s request to send a mission during the cotton harvest season this fall.