During the recent International Cotton and Textile Fair in Tashkent, not a single western buyer signed a contract for Uzbekistan’s cotton, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. This boycott demonstrates the strength of a pledge signed by more than 60 apparel manufacturers, brands and retailers to eliminate forced child labour in the cotton industry.

Jurewicz writes of the growing consumer demand for transparency:

Having buy-in throughout the entire global value chain, where all of the dots are connected, is essential. The time of transparency has come. Consumers and legislation are demanding it.

Consumers are demanding to know more about the goods they are purchasing and, thankfully, new technologies are being adopted to give this information to them right at the point of purchase.

US legislation is also starting to demand more transparency.

Read more here.

The statement was made during a briefing for the press while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s was visiting Uzbekistan.

The State Department’s own reports don’t support this premise, nor does a letter from Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake sent to NGOs recently, says Goldstein:

So why does a senior U.S. official now believe Mr. Karimov’s pious statements, against all the evidence of the Uzbek dictator’s past actions and previous official U.S. statements and reports? Is it because the United States needs Karimov to keep supplies flowing to Afghanistan?

Photo by AP/State.gov. Secretary Rodham Clinton shakes hands with U.S. Amb. Ryan Crocker as Afghan chief of protocol Hamid Saddiq (2nd R) and Lt. General Curtis Scaparotti (Left) look on in Kabul, Afghanistan, Oct.19, 2011.

Advocates against the use of forced child labour in Uzbekistan spoke out again today in an appeal to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the eve of her trip to Central Asia.

Twenty representatives of American trade unions, labor and human rights groups, investors, brands and retailers called on Secretary Clinton to raise with Uzbek President Islam Karimov the need to permit the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to enter Uzbekistan to inspect conditions in the cotton fields.

Reliable reports indicate year that as many as 1.5 million children are removed from school and forced to work in the harvest.

The letter indicates that a number of years of dialogue have gone on with the Uzbek government about these concerns without action:

We do recognize this is a complex problem that will require time to address.  However, we note with grave concern that the steps we had supported three years ago as the first and simplest ‘good faith’ measures that might have been taken by the Government of Uzbekistan have, to date, not been taken.

Uzbek human rights monitors and journalists have reported numerous instances this year of children as young as 8 and 10 picking cotton, with many students aged 12-14,  below the allowable standard for some types of labour. They have also uncovered confirmation that Uzbek state officials deliberately mobilize students through coercion and threats and plan for their exploitation in the annual cotton harvest.

Clinton is touring through Asia to bolster ties with regional powers involved in supplying troops in Afghanistan. She made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan today. The Secretary plans to visit the General Motors plant in Tashkent.

The full text of the letter is as follows:

October 19, 2011

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
US Department of State
via fax

Dear Secretary Clinton,

We represent a broad, international coalition of human rights organizations,  trade unions ,  brands and  retailers, investors,  industry associations  and other nongovernmental organizations  brought together by our common concern over  continued use of forced child labor in Uzbekistan .   We understand you will be visiting Uzbekistan shortly, and urge you to make a priority of this issue in any discussions with the Uzbek government.

As you are aware, your visit also coincides with the opening of the fall harvest in Uzbekistan,  when an estimated 1 1/2  million children  are compelled  to pick cotton.   Recent spot reports and photographs circulated by activists within Uzbekistan have documented that children as young as 8 are currently being removed from school and forced to participate in the cotton harvest.  The spot reports indicate that, despite cosmetic measures by the Uzbek government to respond to international concerns, the practice of widespread mobilization of children and youths continues unabated in the current harvest.

We have appreciated the opportunity to communicate these concerns directly with you, and with senior staff at the State Department, over the past three years, and look forward to further engagement with the Department on this important issue, particularly in the run-up to the 2012 International Labor Conference. We do recognize this is a complex problem that will require time to address.  However, we note with grave concern that the steps we had supported three years ago as the first and simplest ‘good faith’ measures that might have been taken by the Government of Uzbekistan have, to date, not been taken.

We continue to believe that the only step that can truly demonstrate that the government in Taskhent is interested in making significant efforts to address this problem is for it to invite the International Labour Organization (ILO) to send a high level observer mission, as recommended by the ILO’s Committee on the Application of Standards, to assess child labor in Uzbekistan during the cotton harvest.  As you are aware, for the second year since this recommendation was first put forward, the Government of Uzbekistan has refused to allow such a mission, even though this would have been a natural follow-on to Uzbekistan’s ratification of the ILO’s child labor conventions.

We urge you to indicate that unless the Government of Uzbekistan takes this key step, and thereby demonstrates a willingness to make significant efforts to combat forced child labor, they risk a downgrade to Tier III on the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons list, and the consequences that may trigger.

We appreciate the opportunity to share with you our ongoing concern with forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton production, and look forward to further engagement with the Department on this important issue.

Sincerely,

American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA)
AFL-CIO
American Federation of Teachers
Anti-Slavery International
Boston Common Asset Management
Calvert Asset Management
CREA:  Center for Reflection, Action and Education
Child Labor Coalition
Fair Labor Association
Human Rights Watch
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
International Labor Rights Forum
National Consumers League
National Retail Federation
Responsible Sourcing Network
Retail Industry Leaders Association
Open Society Foundations
Social Accountability International (SAI)
U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel (USA-ITA)
United States Council for International Business

Uzbek Girl 2011. Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights

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 these figures and indicate in fact the number may be higher.

Uzbekistan is a closed society with an authoritarian regime where independent local and international monitors are heavily discouraged, and the media is not free to report critically without reprisals. Uzbekistan has not permitted the International Labour Organisation to enter the country and monitor the cotton harvest to determine the ages of people working and the conditions of their work.

Therefore, past estimates have had to rely on studies of some provinces and extrapolation from available known data

The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London has published studies of the use of children in the cotton harvest in Uzbekistan for a number of years. The latest study was based on past reports that were updated in 2010. Based on a survey of some areas, SOAS was able to estimate the number of children used in the cotton harvest:

Based on the survey of six districts, and extrapolating on the basis of further evidence, the conclusion was that ‘[p]ractically all school children between the ages of 10 and 15 years old (from 5th to 9th grades) in rural areas and small towns (district centres) were being recruited for the cotton harvest’ (SOAS, 2009: 19). This equates to about 2.4 million children in the 5th–9th grades and means that children picked an estimated 40–50% of the total cotton harvest.

In August of this year, a number of cables alleged to have been obtained from diplomatic sources by the activist group WikiLeaks were published. The release of these cables began in November 2010 and have continued throughout the year, culminating in the largest batch. Among these cables are numerous reports from the US embassy on its meetings with Uzbek officials and representatives of UNICEF regarding the issue of forced child labor.

In a cable dated June 6, 2008, the US Embassy in Tashkent quoted the figure supplied by the state-controlled trade union:

According to a knowledgeable source, the Trade Union of Uzbekistan (a quasi-governmental organization) estimated in 2008 that 1.64 million school-age children were involved in agricultural work, including cotton picking, representing 45 percent of the total number of Uzbek schoolchildren in grades 5 to 11.

Since most of the agricultural work performed by school-children in Uzbekistan relates to the cotton industry, it is safe to say that the 1.64 million children referenced here are involved in cotton-picking.

This cable also mentions non-governmental groups inside the country who have estimated that anywhere from several hundred thousands to 2 million children could be involved in harvesting cotton. In defense of argumentation that there are less children employed than previously, the cable notes the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey performed by UNICEF, a study that was later acknowledged by UNICEF to be flawed. The cable author as well notes that the survey was conducted in March and May 2006, and thus did not capture the use of children during the fall cotton harvest period from September through November.

Although this cable conceded both the NGO estimates of one million and even referenced the official trade union figure of 1.64, in a subsequent cable, a US diplomat contradicted the Embassy’s own previous assessments and claimed that NGO figures were not reliable.

NGOs have continued to press for the entry of the ILO into Uzbekistan, and to gather information about forced labor.

This season, there was a breakthrough when monitors inside Uzbekistan were able to get a hold of a document that indirectly confirms the numbers of children mobilized in one region.

The Paris-based group Association Droits de l’Homme en Asie Centrale (the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, AHRCA) recently was able to obtain an official government document that indicates plans by the authorities to send as many as 170,000 school-children to pick cotton in the Khorezm region.

The document — an official press release — is said to demonstrate the wide-scale involvement of the state bureaucracy in both coercing children and adults to pick cotton, and punishing them if they fail to obey orders.

The press-release, prepared by the Khorezm region Interior Ministry, stated:

In order to have a quality harvest, in the 2011 harvest, we will have a short time frame to mobilize cotton-pickers, a total of 202,641 people, including 34,800 students from colleges, and high schools. 463 temporary residences (302 field barracks), 109 civilian housing units, 52 tents, etc., have been prepared for their accommodation

This type of press release is typically distributed among local mass media and to the participants of staff meetings held nearly every evening during the cotton season at the offices of provincial and district authorities.

As AHRCA points out, if the authorities have given the total of 202,641 in their province, and the 34,800 college students are subtracted from that figure, the remainder is 167,841 people — and these are likely to be even younger students.

(In Uzbekistan, where children attend school for 10 years, “college” means a high-school level vocational school or academy for older teens).

While there is only an indirect indication that this figure of nearly 170,000 is a reference to school-age children, it’s very likely that for the purposes of planning, this is what is intended, since officials would know the exact number of students enrolled. If the reference was to day laborers, for example, the figure could only be approximate as the large number of labor migrants abroad and the numbers of those returning to Uzbekistan are fluid. If the reference was to teachers or other state employees, they would have been mentioned as a category of people.

Based on the figure of 170,000 out of the population of Khorezm, which constitutes 6% of all 13 cotton-producing regions of Uzbekistan, the likely number of schoolchildren mobilized to pick cotton throughout the country is then estimated at 2,797,350 persons, or at the very least, 2.5 million people.

The document also outlines the coercive nature of the cotton industry:

The subjects of this forced labor are not only schoolchildren and students, but the farmers themselves. Criminal proceedings are brought against those who plant anything other than cotton in their fields, such as more profitable crops, or those who allow livestock to graze in their fields. Two typical details from the press release of the Ministry of Internal Affairs:

1) “As a result of measures taken by law enforcement bodies, we have identified 230 cases of rice cultivation without permission, and among them 222 cases at farms and 8 cases of partial allotments, a total of 941 hectares…According to these facts, materials were prepared and brought to the courts to take action in accordance with the law.”

2) “…On June 2, 2011 in the village of Boshkirshik, Yangibazar district, in the cotton field at the Istikbol Farm owned by Atadjanov Saparboy (date of birth: 09/30/1956), a cow trampled 293 cotton bushes on a 95.4 square kilometer area.”

For this “offense,” the farmer’s cow was confiscated, slaughtered, and the meat was turned over to other agencies.

“This document demonstrates that the government of Uzbekistan does not intend to change anything in the command economy established in the cotton industry, with its usual practice of mass forced labor of workers sent to pick cotton each autumn,” says AHRCA.

“In our view, the only way to persuade the Uzbek government to stop the Stalinist practice of forced labor is to conduct a boycott of its cotton and textiles,” says AHRCA.

AHRCA has called upon the European Parliament to reject pending legislation that would give preferential tariffs for Uzbek textiles exported to Europe and to abolish the Generalized System of Preferences for Uzbek cotton and textiles.

Uzbek children, 2011. Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights

Due to the positive developments during the recent Annual Bilateral Consultations between the Governments of the United States of America and the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Uzbek Government has decided to substantially increase its level of participation at the AUCC Annual Business Forum. The Uzbek delegation to the Republic of Uzbekistan will be led and represented by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Elyor Ganiev, who will attend the events organized by the AUCC and its members.

The AUCC provided an upbeat perspective on its own role and the need to keep moving:

The AUCC members hope that the U.S. – Uzbekistan Annual Business Forum will strengthen our countries’ understanding of the urgency and importance to engage more at the commercial, political and other levels. As they often say it in the East: Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid of only standing still. The AUCC members are confident that our nations dialogue on furthering bilateral cooperation will continue and the AUCC stands ready to be used as an impetus and a vehicle for letting it grow.

What followed then on the same page — last week — was a detailed agenda for the September 28 meeting and a list of all the speakers and their topics.

Evidently after learning of a planned picket by labor and human rights groups outside the venue, the AUCC removed the agenda from their website.

But you can still see partial evidence of it in the Google cache page preview:

Partial View of Agenda Removed from AUCC Website

…and we saved a copy (see below the fold).

PROGRAM

2011 U.S.-UZBEKISTAN ANNUAL BUSINESS FORUM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2011
HOTEL W, WASHINGTON DC, USA

9.15 AM
Registration and Breakfast

9.30 AM
American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce: Welcome Remarks
Carolyn B. Lamm, Chairman
American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce

9.40 AM
Republic of Uzbekistan: Welcome Remarks
Elyor Ganiev, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan – Minister of Foreign Affairs

10.00 AM
United States of America: Welcome Remarks
Susan M. Elliott, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia
U.S. Department of State

10.15 AM
Report from the 2011 United States – Central Asia Trade and Investment Council Meeting
Jonathan Ward, Director for South and Central Asia
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

10.30 AM
U.S. Government Resources for Doing Business
Danica Starks, Senior Caucasus and Central Asia Policy Advisor
Office of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, International Trade Administration
U.S. Department of Commerce

10.45 AM
Coffee Break

11.00 AM – 12.00 PM
INVESTING IN UZBEKISTAN: INDUSTRY CASE STUDIES AND SUCCESS STORY
Moderated by Shukhrat Vafaev, Managing Director
Fund for Reconstruction and Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan

11.00 AM
Prospects for Developing Uzbekistan – American Investment Cooperation and Navoi Free Industrial Economic Zone: Opportunities to Produce High-Tech Products for Exports
Davron Dadakhanov, Head of the Department
Ministry for Foreign Economic Relations, Investments and Trade

11.15 AM
Uzbek Oil and Gas Sector: Prospects for Bilateral Cooperation
Djurabek Mirzamakhmudov, Deputy Chief of the Main Directorate
Uzbekneftegas National Holding Company (Uzbek Oil and Gas)

11.30 PM

Presentation by the Main Sponsor of the Event
NUKEM and NMMC: Reliable Supply of Uranium to Western Markets for 19 years
Tim McGraw, Executive Vice-President
NUKEM, Inc.

11.45 PM
Uzbek Chemical Industry: Prospects for Bilateral Cooperation
Khamidilla Shermatov, Chairman
UzChimProm State Company (Uzbek Chemical Industry)

12.00 PM
Lunch

1.00 PM – 2.15 PM
AUCC MEMBERS: U.S BUSINESSES AT THE FOREFRONT OF PROMOTING BILATERAL TRADE AND INVESTMENTS
Moderated by Tim McGraw, AUCC President

1.00 PM
CNH in Uzbekistan
Stuart Campbell, Business Director
Case New Holland

1.15 PM
GE’s Perspective on Doing Business in Uzbekistan
George A. Pickart , Director of Global Government Relations for GE Energy
General Electric Company

1.30 PM
Caterpillar and Zeppelin; Reliable Partners for Growing Uzbekistan’s Economy
Tom Moran, Consultant
Zeppelin International AG

1.45 PM
Uzbekistan and Honeywell: 20+ Years of Partnership
Art Simonetti, Vice President
Honeywell

2.00 PM
GM Uzbekistan: A Partnership For Success
Arturo Elias, VP International Government Relations & Public Policy
General Motors

2.15
Coffee Break

2.30 PM – 3.45 PM
UZBEK, U.S. & INTERNATIONAL BANKING, FINANCIAL AND POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS: ECONOMY, BANKING, ENERGY AND SECURITY
Moderated by Dr. S. Frederick Starr. Co-moderated by Tim McGraw, AUCC President

2.30 PM
The Three Poles of Uzbek-American Relations and Where They Are Pointing
Dr. S. Frederick Starr, Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center
Johns Hopkins University

2.45 PM
Uzbekistan at 20: A Time for New Approaches
Dr. Martha Olcott
Senior Associate
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

3.00 PM
Economic Outlook for the Central Asia Region, Including Uzbekistan
David Owen, Deputy Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department, International Monetary Fund

3.15 PM
Banking and Financial Sector of the Republic of Uzbekistan: How the Fund Can Help U.S. Investors
Shukhrat Vafaev, Managing Director

Fund for Reconstruction and Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan
3.30 PM

Development Opportunities and Challenges for Middle Income Economies
Takuya Kamata
Country Manager, Uzbekistan
The World Bank

3.45 PM
Conclusion & Discussion

4.00 PM
End of the Annual Business Forum

6.30PM
Gala Reception hosted by the Uzbek Embassy
1746 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20036

***

Susan Elliott, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central And South Asia, was schedule to speak, (although was not listed on the public schedule today at State).

On Wednesday, September 28 at noon at the W Hotel in Washington, DC, a number of human rights and labor groups plan to protest the use of child forced labour in the cotton industry as well as other human rights violations by the oppressive regime of President Islam Karimov.

RSVP ONLINE HERE! For more details, visit the International Labor Rights Forum at www.LaborRights.org or contact laborrights@ilrf.org or 202-347-4100.

More information is available now about those speaking at the event at the AUCC.

The decision by the Senate Appropriations Committee to include language in support of a waiver in the foreign operations bill is no doubt among the events indicated by the AUCC in its reference to “positive developments during the recent Annual Bilateral Consultations between the Governments of the United States of America and the Republic of Uzbekistan.”

Those “positive developments” are now leading the Uzbek delegation to expand and upgrade its representation.

Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister Elyor Ganiev, who also holds the title of Foreign Minister, will lead the Uzbek delegation. The US is sending an official who is not at the same level, but still sufficiently high: Susan M. Elliott, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia U.S. Department of State.

Other US government officials who will be present at what is now not just a meeting of businesses, but a meeting of political leaders, are Jonathan Ward, Director for South and Central Asia, The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, who will give a report from the US Central Asia Trade and Investment Council meeting; and Danica Starks, Senior Caucasus and Central Asia Policy Advisor, Office of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia of the International Trade Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce who will speak on the theme “U.S. Government Resources for Doing Business”.

David Owen, Deputy Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund will speak on “Economic Outlook for the Central Asia Region, Including Uzbekistan” and Takuya Kamata, Country Manager for Uzbekistan for the the World Bank will speak on “Development Opportunities and Challenges for Middle Income Economies.”

Corporate officials from General Electric, NUKEM, and GM will speak, as will representatives from the state-run Uzbek energy companies, but they are almost overwhelmed by the government heavy-weights.

Dr. Frederick Starr, long a friend to Central Asian governments, will also speak.

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.

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

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. (The definition of “trafficking” in this report includes any form of coerced labor.)

In 2008, under the conditions of the US Trafficking Victim Protections Act passed by Congress, countries that have been on the Tier 2 Watch List for more than two consecutive years would have to either improve their practices or be downgraded to Tier 3. This “automatic downgrade” which was anticipated for a number of countries began to create political difficulties when some of America’s allies and needed partners fell on the list.

As a result, Uzbekistan remains at the Tier 2 level, despite four consecutive years in this category, and despite the State Department’s admission in the report that Uzbekistan “does not comply with the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking” and has “demonstrated negligible progress in ceasing forced labor” and has failed to investigate and prosecute officials responsible for the use of forced child and adult labor. The State Department’s rationalization has to do with accepting Uzbek government declarations in lieu of action:

Uzbekistan was not placed on Tier 3 per Section 107 of the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, however, as the government has a written plan that, if implemented, would constitute making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is devoting sufficient resources to implement that plan. As in previous years, the government set a quota for national cotton production and paid farmers artificially low prices for the cotton produced, making it almost impossible for Uzbek farmers to pay wages that would attract a consenting workforce. Provincial governors were held personally responsible for ensuring that the quota was met; they in turn passed along this pressure to local officials, who organized and forced school children, university students, faculty, and other government employees to pick cotton.

So Uzbekistan was able to wriggle out of a downgrade to Tier 3 because it has a “national action plan” and has created a state-controlled “monitoring body,” neither of which have proven effective.

Reports are already coming in this year of the use of children to do weeding of the cotton fields under conditions with hazardous pesticides.

The G-TIP report also cites the permission for UNICEF to help mitigate the use of child labor in Uzbekistan. This is an important Uzbek government — and international agency — admission that the problem of child labor exists — it is often denied by Uzbek officials. The acknowledgement of UNICEF that it has been enlisted in such a mitigation effort is also a an invaluable validation of the reports of domestic and international non-governmental groups. Yet the UNICEF program is not a formal monitoring of labor conditions, which should be performed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The Uzbek government has persistently refused to invite in an ILO mission during the harvest season, despite calls for human rights groups and employer and labor groups at the ILO annual meeting. With little time to organize and conduct such a mission properly starting in late September or early October, when the cotton harvest begins, it does not seem likely it will take place this year.

The inclusion of Uzbekistan at all in the G-TIP Watch List caused some debate among analysts who questioned the advisability of alienating a much-needed ally in maintaining the Northern Distribution Network supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan, although Uzbekistan has pledged to abide by ILO Conventions it has signed to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.

This article originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Yet her argumentation, while methodical, leaves out the obvious counterpoint  – not only has the Uzbek government made an international commitment to end forced child labor, the International Labor Organization is rightly calling Tashkent to account as NGOs and international agencies continue to document the use of children in the cotton harvest.

Hashimova’s argumentation references UN treaties and international norms to make a development-based but ultimately disingenuous argument that because Uzbekistan has higher literacy, better economic indicators, and more cases of prosecution of trafficking than its neighbors, it should not be targeted for censure for its failure to comply with International Labor Organization’s (ILO) conventions — conventions which Uzbekistan has signed and ratified, and claims it is in the process of fulfilling. Recently, in fact, the government created a new inter-agency task force to monitor the issue, a move greeted with skepticism by activists but which indicates that the regime is going through the motions of compliance rather than outright rejection of the principles at stake.

The articles appear to have been sparked by the position that the U.S. government has taken through the US government’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, known as G-TIP. G-TIP publishes a comprehensive report on trafficking in 175 countries each year, and has been critical of Uzbekistan, placing it in the category of “tier 2,” countries needing improvement.

DEFINITIONAL DISPUTES

Hashimova objects to the inclusion of forced child labor in the list of G-TIP,  which was established to implement the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol, on the grounds that ostensibly the UN treaty would apply only to forcibly taking persons across state borders.

Yet as the G-TIP web page explains, for the last 15 years, ““trafficking in persons” and “human trafficking” have been “used as umbrella terms for activities involved when someone obtains or holds a person in compelled service” – regardless if they are transported.

Hashimova makes a literalist and abstract interpretation of the UN treaty, yet in fact, as the treaty is applied by states as well as UNODC,  the notion of human trafficking does not require transport of persons but merely “acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them.”

She also cites the absence of any statement from UNICEF or UNDP on the issue of child labor as a form of trafficking per se as somehow evidence that it does not constitute such an offense. In fact, UNICEF has recently begun to break a long-standing silence on the issue, admitting that its methodology for examining the problem had been incomplete. It’s also well known that the UN agencies operating in Central Asia tend to mute their criticism  of the autocratic regimes of their host countries to ensure they continue to maintain a presence there and at least complete some helpful projects.

WHY SINGLE OUT UZBEKISTAN?

Hashimova is not only concerned about definitional issues, however, but attacks the US government as well as non-governmental campaigns against child labor in Uzbekistan as unbalanced and unfair. Uzbekistan has “been doing much more than its neighbors,” she says, to investigate and prosecute sex-trafficking and the abuse of labor migrants.”

In reality, Uzbekistan’s record is far from perfect and its means of combating sex trafficking extremely harsh. Since January 2011, for example, unmarried women under 35 are being denied exit visas from Uzbekistan unless they can produce parental consent and numerous other references,  on the suspicion that they may engage in prostitution, uznews.net reported.

Hashimov also objects to what she sees as a selective approach by civil society protesters against forced child labor. Uzbekistan’s neighbors, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, also have issues with forced labor in their cotton harvests, but have not been singled out by NGO campaigns. India, Pakistan or China have child labor problems, too. Why don’t activists work on those countries?

THE CULTURAL EXCUSE

Another argument is that work for children is customary in Uzbekistan and seen by the community as good for children. “The involvement of children in labor has a cultural aspect, which was promoted once the collectivization process started in the Soviet era. Children were encouraged to help their farmer parents and relatives in cotton, corn, vegetable or other fields,” she writes.

But child labor is only beneficial if the work comes after school and is not coerced, or taking place in terrible conditions. The ample documentation of children in the harvest illustrates that it is not children in farm families, but the children of parents who are employed outside of agriculture in other sectors who are coerced to pick cotton. The students are bused by school or government officials, and teachers, doctors, soldiers and other workers are also pressed into service by the state in public drives for the harvest.

Interestingly, a statement made by a UNICEF official at a recent panel discussion was that cotton-picking is not good for children  — they are exposed to toxic pesticides and harsh and debilitating working conditions.

Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration, used to have two sayings that she would invoke when these kinds of arguments were made. The first was, “It’s not cultural, it’s criminal” – in endless disputes about whether violence against women was tolerable for cultural reasons. The same notion applies to forced child labor. Albright’s other saying was, “Just because you can’t act everywhere doesn’t mean you don’t act anywhere.”

LABOR RIGHTS ARE UNIVERSAL

Unions and human rights groups certainly recognize the universality of labor and human rights, affirm them everywhere, and work where they can be effective. In that respect, NGO work on the child labor issue in Uzbekistan because of a confluence of factors — there are groups working on the issue inside the country who ask for solidarity, and who can get information out; the problem is also well-documented and widespread. Other Central Asian countries like Turkmenistan may have the same kind of problems with forced child labor, but it is difficult to get the information and NGO activity is virtual destroyed. Most notably, groups work on Uzbekistan because Tashkent itself has made a highly-publicized commitment to abide by the ILO’s conventions. That doesn’t mean that the NGOs don’t care about India, Pakistan or China — indeed there are human rights groups actively campaigning against forced labor and for children’s rights in those countries.

FORCED ARGUMENTS

Hashimova’s least persuasive argument is that the campaign against forced labor was somehow cooked up because Western companies need to compete with the Uzbek cotton industry, and needed to find a way to put it out of business. She contradicts herself by also claiming, as the Uzbek government does, that it is reducing the share of the cotton industry in the national economy. More to the point, her argument is completely undermined these days by the high price of raw cotton on the exchanges, and the shortages that clothing and sportswear companies are already announcing that will dictate a rise in consumer prices.

Another rather stretched argument also relates to the Soviet legacy. Hashimova says because Uzbekistan was subjugated by Russia in the Soviet Union and essentially “transformed into the Russian Empire’s principal cotton colony,” with “substantial level of social security despite the wage levels” the present system is somehow acceptable. Yet Uzbekistan is hardly subdued by Russia now, which is among its largest customers for the cotton, and the “social security” of private farmers is a chimera – recently, even harsher laws were passed to make the state-controlled agricultural sector even more oppressive for farmers, who have to accept fixed prices and whose farms can be seized if they are viewed as producing below an assessed quota. Uzbeks since independence have hardly chosen the brutal Soviet collectivization model for their society, yet the real transition to private farming has not authentically been made by the state.

G-TIP’S WATCH LIST

What Hashimova is most concerned about, however, is the affect the US sanction of Uzbekistan through G-TIP could mean for their overall relationship. G-TIP recently released an interim assessment of the countries on the Tier 2 “Special Watch List,” which included Uzbekistan, and because of continued non-compliance could be in danger of a downgrading to tier 3, which could impact assistance, says Hashimova:

The importance of the NDN to the Afghanistan war effort cannot be overstated given the constant interdiction of supplies through Pakistan by the Taliban and its Pakistani supporters in recent years. However, this fragile US-Uzbek relationship appears to be on the verge of possible collapse due to arcane and illogical actions by the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G-TIP).

Yet as Hashimova herself notes, the State Department is likely to issue a waiver due to the need to cooperate with Uzbekistan. And at the end of the day, G-TIP is just doing its job under US law. The use of forced child labor is not just a cultural heritage, it is a violation of US law, part of US policy about international relations in keeping with UN treaty obligations, and most importantly, incorporated into Uzbek national law and international commitments – a fact UNICEF recognizes certainly when it devises programs with the Uzbek government to mitigate child labor.

HUMAN RIGHTS?

Hashimova, who is described as an independent scholar, is a graduate of the University of Essex with a masters in human rights, and listed at the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council. She has held positions in Amnesty International’s Asia Advocacy Program and worked for UNDP in Tashkent and also for UNODC as a researcher. So she is grounded in human rights law and practice and experienced with the UN. Yet in these two articles, she has failed to state the obvious about Uzbekistan’s human rights violations or even to mention the term “human rights” at all.

Instead, she echoes the rhetoric the Uzbek government has used about the US government purportedly “taking up the cause of a number of anti-Uzbekistan NGOs and possibly competing cotton exporters to vilify Uzbekistan.”

Yet the revolutions in the Middle East have prompted US policy-makers to contemplate more deeply the human rights values the US professes and the stark consequences of failing to uphold them abroad in the long run. Uzbekistan stands to gain as much from the US in terms of trade and security as Washington seeks from the relationship with Tashkent – there is no need to foreclose the future of Uzbek children, depriving them of schooling and subjecting them to harsh work in a state-controlled industry that benefits only the ruling families and their associates. Most importantly, Tashkent itself now professes the letter of the labor law if not the spirit, and there is no reason why both NGOs and foreign governments cannot call Uzbekistan to account.