(Washington, D.C.) – A formal complaint against the importation of cotton from Uzbekistan grown and harvested with forced labor was filed today by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), a leading American human and labor rights watchdog organization. Under the Tariff Act of 1930, the U.S. Customs Service is required to deny entry to goods that arrive at U.S. ports that contain materials made with forced labor.

For decades, the government of Uzbekistan, under the dictator Islam Karimov, has forced millions of children, teachers, nurses, doctors, public sector workers and private sector employees to pick cotton under appalling conditions. Those who refuse are expelled from school, fired from their jobs, denied public benefits or worse. The government combines these penalties with threats, detains and tortures activists seeking to monitor the situation and continues to refuse the International Labor Organization’s efforts to monitor the cotton harvest.

The complaint calls on U.S. Customs to issue an immediate detention order on all pending and future imports of cotton goods manufactured by Daewoo International Corporation, Indorama Corporation, and other companies processing cotton in Uzbekistan. Daewoo International, a South Korean-based company owned by the steel manufacturer POSCO (NYSE: PKX), and Indorama Corporation (www.indorama.com), a Singapore based multi-national that produces yarn, fabrics and organic cotton products, are two of the largest processors of Uzbek cotton.

According to U.S. import records, over 620 tons of cotton yarn and fabric has been imported into the United States from facilities in Uzbekistan since 2008. U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission data indicate at least 23 tons of cotton yarn from Uzbekistan entered the United States in February 2013 alone.

“U.S. federal law forbids the importation of goods produced using forced labor,” said Brian Campbell, Director of Policy and Legal Programs. “We expect U.S. Customs will conduct a thorough investigation into how cotton from Uzbekistan is escaping detection at U.S. ports of entry and effectively ban all future imports into the United States.”

The complaint is available online at: http://goo.gl/464aE

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The International Labor Rights Forum is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. For more information, please visit www.LaborRights.org.

This article first appeared in the EU Observer, April 23, 2013.

LONDON - European Parliamentarians deserve praise for blocking a textile agreement with Uzbekistan due to systematic and continuous human rights violations in its cotton sector.

This week, the parliament’s trade committee will review this position and in light of the Uzbek government’s lack of progress in bringing this practice to a meaningful end, should call upon the European Commission to launch an investigation into Uzbekistan’s trade preferences with Europe.

Uzbekistan is notoriously repressive.

The Uzbek government continues to use a state-order system of cotton production underpinned by forced labour of children and adults, despite international condemnation including by the United Nations.

The last harvest the government of Uzbekistan intensified the use of forced labour.

All government employees – teachers, doctors, and nurses among others – were required to contribute to the cotton harvest under threat of losing their jobs, pay or benefits.

Students and children aged 15 to 18 made up for the shortfall in younger children as authorities reacted to pressure to end the systematic closure of primary schools evident in previous harvests.

The trade committee will invite the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to give an update at its meeting.

Despite Uzbekistan’s commitments to relevant ILO conventions banning the use of forced labour and the worst forms of child labour, it has steadfastly refused to implement the ILO’s recommendation to invite a high-level tripartite mission to observe the harvest, leaving the ILO’s hands tied.

Although seemingly remote from Uzbekistan’s cotton fields, decisions taken in the European Parliament’s committee rooms and the corridors of the commission’s Berlaymont building do matter.

The bulk of Uzbekistan’s cotton, which is picked using forced labour, is exported and ends up in European shops.

The majority of Belgium’s cotton imports are from Uzbekistan; Uzbekistan is the second largest supplier of cotton to Italy and Germany; and companies in Turkey, a hub of textile manufacturing for European brands, process Uzbek cotton to a wide extent.

Even at a time of crisis, the EU’s 500 million-strong consumer bloc and its position as a leading trade partner is important to a relatively small country like Uzbekistan.

The German ombudsman has called for a boycott of Uzbek cotton, whilst the French National Contact Point for OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises has stated unequivocally that the trade in cotton produced by forced child labour constitutes a flagrant violation of the guidelines.

In Brussels, the parliament has so far acted as the sole body representing Europe’s conscience on the issue, voting overwhelmingly in December 2011 to block the textile agreement between the EU and Uzbekistan on human rights grounds.

In so doing, the parliament answered the call of European consumers and retailers who, together with human rights NGOs, European schoolchildren, employers and trade unions and Uzbek diaspora groups, are increasingly standing up against this practice.

By contrast Europe’s trade commissioner Karel de Gucht has remained silent.

It is time that the commission’s DG Trade investigates the evidence that its rules on trade preferences are being violated by Uzbekistan and remove those benefits.

Doing so would not only put into practice the commitment to “make trade work for human rights” in the EU Global Human Rights Strategic Framework adopted last summer.

It would also ensure trade preference rules are applied fairly, thereby boosting the integrity of this incentive-based system.

The mass mobilisation of children and adults under threat of penalty – including dismissal from work, the loss of salary, pensions and welfare benefits – is a serious and systematic violation of core ILO standards and therefore technically meets the EU’s criteria for the suspension of preferences.

Yet forced labour on the scale practised in Uzbekistan is a political, not a technical issue.

The EU needs to use its leverage as a consumer and major trading partner to send the message that systematic use of state-sponsored forced labour is unacceptable.

Parliament should use this meeting to ask commissioner De Gucht to answer the call of citizens from across Europe and open an investigation into Uzbekistan’s status as a beneficiary of trade preferences.

When political change inevitably comes to Uzbekistan, the Uzbek people will remember if Europe did everything it could to help end their servitude.

The answer may well shape their attitudes towards Europe long after President Islam Karimov has left the scene.

Until that time, the EU can at least ensure that its action matches its stated policies on human rights.

Chairman Chris Smith (R-NJ) expressed grave concern that the government of Uzbekistan continues to force hundreds of thousands of men, women and children to labor in the annual cotton harvest.  Rep. Smith stated his concern yesterday, at an April 18 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, which he chairs.

Testifying at the hearing, Ambassador Mark Lagon, who served as the State Department’s Ambassador-at-Large for Trafficking in Persons during the George W. Bush administration, called Uzbekistan the “most appalling case” in the former-Soviet neighborhood.  Lagon went challenged those within the U.S. government who wish to downplay the massive tragedy of forced labor in Uzbekistan for geopolitical reasons.  “There are loud voices within the U.S. Government,” he said, “who say the U.S. must downplay any distraction which might upset Uzbekistan’s cooperation in the Northern Distribution Network getting supplies to troops in Afghanistan…. But if as unreconstructed and unrepentant an autocracy as Uzbekistan is let off the hook because of a supply mechanism for troops being winnowed from Afghanistan anyway, it would be a travesty.”

Due to amendments in the most recent reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), the State Department will no longer be able to park Uzbekistan – as it has for the last several years – on the Tier II Watch List, the second lowest step in its scale for rating countries’ efforts to prevent trafficking in persons.  This spring, State must either upgrade Uzbekistan to Tier II (countries failing to meet the minimum standards set out in the TVPA but making significant efforts to improve the situation) or downgrade it to Tier III (countries failing both to meet the TVPA’s minimum standards and to make significant efforts to do so). David Abramowitz, Humanity United’s Vice President of Government Relations, warned the hearing against prematurely upgrading countries such as Uzbekistan to Tier II, noting that, while seeking to appease the international community by forcing fewer young children to pick cotton in 2012, the Uzbek government had in their place mobilized more adults and older children (ages 15-17), substituting one form of forced labor with more of another.

Speaking on behalf of the Cotton Campaign, Brian Campbell, International Labor Rights Forum’s Director of Policy, detailed the mass use of forced labor during Uzbekistan’s 2012 cotton harvest, and catalogued a number of alarming trends, including greater corruption (people being forced to pay money to officials to avoid being sent to pick cotton), disruption of services (hospitals and schools closed or unable to provide normal services while staff was out picking cotton), and continued intimidation of those who did not wish to pick cotton through threats of expulsion from school or loss of jobs or government benefits.  Campbell concluded that the first key step the Government of Uzbekistan must take to indicate it is serious about abandoning a cotton system predicated on the mass use of forced labor is to invite the International Labor Organization to monitor the fall 2013 harvest and prepare recommendations for steps to end forced labor.  He urged Rep. Smith and the other Members present to join the Coalition in pressing the State Department to make clear to Uzbek officials that inviting the ILO to monitor the upcoming harvest is the only way they can avoid a well-deserved downgrade to Tier III.

We hope you will join in these efforts as well!  Please write your Congressman and Senators.  Tell them that it is time for the U.S. government to stand up more strongly to the officials in Tashkent who benefit from the use of forced labor by demanding that they either invite the ILO to monitor this fall’s harvest or be downgraded to Tier III status when the State Department issues its annual Trafficking Report in June.

(April 16, 2013) – The US Department of State should place Uzbekistan in Tier 3 in the 2013 Global Trafficking in Persons Report (J/TIP) unless the Uzbek government invites a high-level, tripartite International Labour Organization (ILO) observer mission to monitor this fall’s harvest prior to the report’s release, said 50 business associations, companies, investors, NGOs and trade unions in a letter today to Secretary of State John Kerry. The coalition is united as the Cotton Campaign to end forced labor of children and adults in the cotton sector in Uzbekistan.

Tier 3 in the Trafficking in Persons Report indicates that a government is not making significant efforts to combat human trafficking and opens up the possibility of sanctions. While many governments fail to effectively curb human trafficking, the Uzbek government has organized, orchestrated and benefited from forced labor for decades. During the 2012 cotton harvest the Uzbek government once again mobilized the forced labor of hundreds of thousands of children and adults in the fields. Public servants – including teachers, nurses, doctors and military personnel, private sector employees, university students and children were forced to pick cotton under threats of punishment, such as loss of employment, docked salary, denied welfare benefits and expulsion from school.

“The Uzbek government’s systematic use of forced adult and child labor in the cotton sector this year and its persistent failure to allow the ILO to visit the country to monitor these practices must be represented for what it is in the State Department’s report,” said Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia Researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Anything less than a Tier 3 would fail the well over a million children and adults in Uzbekistan who fall victim to the system of modern-day slavery each year.”

With the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, the State Department identifies human trafficking and efforts of governments to end such egregious human rights violations around the world. “Unless Uzbekistan invites the ILO to monitor the fall harvest beforehand, ranking Uzbekistan anywhere but Tier 3 would raise serious questions about the credibility of the Trafficking in Persons Report, said Bennett Freeman, Senior Vice President for Social Research and Policy, Calvert Investments. “Businesses, investors, unions and NGOs rely on this report for accurate and authoritative guidance.”

In the coming weeks, the US government has a legal requirement to upgrade or downgrade Uzbekistan in the 2013 J/TIP Report. The release of the Report coincides with the annual meeting of the ILO, where employers, workers and governments are expected to hold a hearing on Uzbekistan.

“The timing of the J/TIP report presents the US government a unique chance to contribute to ending forced labor in Uzbekistan,” said Brian Finnegan, Global Workers’ Rights Coordinator, AFL-CIO. “Globally, workers and employers have called repeatedly on Uzbekistan to invite the ILO to monitor, because the Uzbek government’s forced labor system of cotton production violates its national law and international commitments.”

In the letter to Secretary Kerry, the coalition notes the State Department’s extraordinary opportunity with this year’s J/TIP Report. If the Uzbek government fails to invite the ILO prior to the June release of the Report and the State Department ranks Uzbekistan Tier 3, State may sustain principled engagement by urging them to invite the ILO observer mission for the fall cotton harvest, to avoid sanctions available under Tier 3.

Critics of this policy might argue that the U.S. should not risk upsetting the Uzbek government, because we need its railroads and airspace to supply and withdraw our troops in Afghanistan. However, in addition to the moral case for action, the U.S. should consider the Uzbek people, who will long remember whether the U.S. did everything in its power to end their servitude. Forced labor of children and adults in cotton fields ought to be one thing the U.S. calls on the Uzbek government to abolish.

Uzbekistan’s foreign minister, Abdulaziz Kamilov, was one of the first foreign officials to meet with Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington this week. The meeting underscored Uzbekistan’s important role in the Northern Distribution Network, through which the United States moves supplies to the troops in Afghanistan.

But there is another, more sinister side to Uzbekistan. While many governments fail to effectively curb human trafficking and slave labor, Uzbekistan stands out. It is the only country where the government is the trafficker.

Each year, the Uzbek government forces hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to pick cotton. Schools are closed and students are threatened with expulsion. Business hours are reduced and workers are threatened with losing their jobs. Essential services are downgraded as teachers, doctors and nurses are forced to pick cotton. Uzbek citizens who fail to meet their government-ordained quotas must pay large sums to hire alternate pickers.

Cotton is king in Uzbekistan.

It is the prime source of revenue for the central government, which is led by a former communist party boss, President Islom Karimov. He and his cronies have taken the old Soviet central economic planning system and perfected it.

The central government tells farmers how much cotton to plant, buys it on the cheap at below market prices and sells it abroad at a huge profit. And state-sponsored forced labor is the lubricant that keeps the creaky gears of this economically irrational system from collapsing.

Since 2007, a coalition of apparel companies, labor and human rights groups, and socially conscious investors has pressed the Uzbek government to stop the practice of forced labor. The United States and other Western governments have pressured Tashkent too.

But the Uzbek government continues to deny there is a problem. Despite committing to meet international standards, Tashkent steadfastly refuses to allow the International Labor Organization to monitor the situation on the ground.

But this year there is a sign that pressure is reaching the Uzbek authorities, even if it has only resulted in cosmetic changes. Unlike in past years, the Uzbek government did not close all of the country’s elementary schools and force young children to join the harvest. The move, however, appears to be a public relations stunt. The government made up the loss in free labor by forcing more children ages 15 to 18, and more adults to pick cotton. It simply swapped age groups without reducing the scope of the problem.

Nevertheless, there is one more tool at the Obama Administration’s disposal. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, the Department of State will no longer be able to list—in its annual report on the worst offenders of sex and labor trafficking—Uzbekistan as just one more country that is planning to address trafficking in persons. By June, State must either upgrade Uzbekistan to a country that is taking sustained and significant action or downgrade it to the lowest category, which brings with it the threat of sanctions.

Senior U.S. officials need to make clear to the Uzbek government that to avoid sanctions it must agree to allow the ILO to monitor the harvest this fall. The ILO is the most competent international body to determine the true scope of the problem and to begin working with Tashkent on a serious plan to address it.

Critics of this policy likely will argue that the U.S. should not risk angering the Uzbek government because we need its railroads and airspace to supply our troops in Afghanistan and facilitate their withdrawal. But as President Obama said in his inaugural address, the U.S. must support democracy and human rights abroad “because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom.”

When political change inevitably comes to Uzbekistan, the Uzbek people will remember if the United States did everything it could to help end their servitude. The answer may well shape their attitudes towards the United States and whether our walk matches our talk, long after Karimov has exited from the scene and Afghanistan drops from the top ranks of U.S. foreign policy challenges. Involuntary servitude in cotton-picking ought to be one thing the U.S. calls plainly for abolishing.

The authors are members of the Cotton Campaign, which includes unions, investors, retailers, and organizations, all working to end forced labor in Uzbekistan. For more information or to get involved, visit cottoncampaign.org.

Mark P. Lagon served as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Combat Trafficking in Persons from 2007 to 2009.  Bennett Freeman served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Rights and Labor under President Clinton. Nate Herman is the Vice President of International Trade at the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA)

(Washington, DC, March 11, 2013) – The government of Uzbekistan must end forced labor, forced child labor and human rights abuses, said Uzbek nationals in the U.S., the Cotton Campaign and the Child Labor Coalition. The demonstrators will gather in front of the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Washington DC (1746 Massachusetts Ave, near Dupont Circle) and present a letter signed by business, human rights, investor and labor organizations to the Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Komilov, who is visiting Washington from March 11 to March 13.

Every year for decades, the government of Uzbekistan has forced millions of children and adults – teachers, nurses, doctors, public servants and private sector employees – to pick cotton under appalling conditions. Those who refuse are expelled from school, fired from their jobs, denied public benefits or worse. The government combines these penalties with threats, detains and harasses Uzbek activists seeking to monitor the situation, and continues to refuse the International Labor Organization’s access to monitor the harvest. Uzbekistan is one of the largest cotton producing countries in the world, and cotton harvested there by forced labor finds its way into the U.S. apparel industry.

“It’s time for the Uzbek government to take serious action to end forced labor in the cotton sector,” said Judy Gearhart, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Forum. “The government’s attempt to shift more of the cotton picking burden to adults for the 2012 harvest failed to address the problem. Forced labor of adults intensified, and forced child labor persisted. The Uzbek government must take effective measures to end forced labor and invite the International Labor Organization to monitor the 2013 cotton harvest.”

Foreign Minister Kamilov is visiting Washington, DC to seek increased support from the U.S. Congress and the Executive for the government of Uzbekistan. Under the rule of long-time President Islam Karimov, torture is an enduring problem in Uzbekistan’s detention facilities, journalists and human rights defenders are imprisoned for legitimate civil society activism, and religious practice is persecuted. Gulshan Karaeva, Uktam Pardaev and Elena Urlaeva were among the victims of harassment and arrest for attempting to document the 2012 cotton harvest.

“Modern-day slavery in the cotton fields persists as long as Uzbek citizens are denied fundamental human rights,” said Reid Maki, Child Labor Coalition Coordinator. “When political change inevitably comes to Uzbekistan, the Uzbek people will remember if the United States did everything it could to help end their servitude.”

Today, the demonstrators and their supporters around the world call on the government of Uzbekistan to urgently take the following measures:

• Invite a high-level ILO tripartite observation mission to conduct unfettered monitoring during the 2013 cotton harvest;
• Take immediate and effective time-bound measures to eradicate forced labor of children and adults in the cotton sector; and
• Allow unhindered access for independent monitors, including the eleven UN monitors who have been unable to visit due to the government’s refusal to issue the required invitations, and implement recommendations by independent monitoring bodies, including UN treaty bodies and special procedures.

For more information, please contact:

In Washington, DC, for International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), Judy Gearhart, (English, French, Spanish): +1(202) 347-4100; or Judy@ilrf.org

In Washington, DC, for Child Labor Coalition, Reid Maki, (English): +1(202) 835-3323; or reidm@nclnet.org

In New York, NY, for Cotton Campaign, Matthew Fischer-Daly (English, Spanish): +1(347) 266-1351; or CottonCampaignCoordinator@gmail.com

The Cotton Campaign is the global coalition of worker, employer, investor and human rights organizations coalesced to build political will in the government of Uzbekistan to end forced labor of children and adults in its cotton sector. The Child Labor Coalition has worked in the U.S. and globally to end child labor exploitation and to promote health, safety, education and well-being for working minors since 1989. ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide.

“The country uses government-sponsored forced labor of adults and children during the cotton harvest.”

and, included in HRW’s recommendations to the government of Uzbekistan,

“End forced labor of adults and children in the cotton sector, allow independent monitoring by the International Labour Organization, and allow independent nongovernmental organizations and activists to conduct their own monitoring without harassment.”

March 11, 2013, 12 – 1 PM EST, at the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Washington, Massachusetts Ave. near Dupont Circle (1746 Massachusetts Ave NW Washington, DC 20036)

Every year for decades, the government of Uzbekistan has forced millions of children and adults – teachers, nurses, doctors, public servants and private sector employees – to pick cotton under appalling conditions. Those who refuse are expelled from school, fired from their jobs, denied public benefits or worse. The government combines these penalties with threats, detains and harasses Uzbek activists seeking to monitor the situation, and continues to refuse the International Labor Organization’s access to monitor the harvest. Uzbekistan is one of the largest cotton producing countries in the world, and cotton harvested there by forced labor finds its way into the U.S. apparel industry.

Modern-day slavery in the cotton fields persists as long as Uzbek citizens are denied fundamental human rights. Under the rule of long-time President Islam Karimov, torture is an enduring problem in Uzbekistan’s detention facilities, journalists and human rights defenders are imprisoned for legitimate civil society activism, and religious practice is persecuted. Gulshan Karaeva, Uktam Pardaev and Elena Urlaeva were among the victims of harassment and arrest for attempting to document the 2012 cotton harvest.

Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov is visiting Washington, DC to seek increased support from the U.S. Congress and the Executive for the government of Uzbekistan. Join us outside the Uzbek Embassy to call for an end of forced labor and human rights abuses as conditions for support from the American people. When political change inevitably comes to Uzbekistan, the Uzbek people will remember if the United States did everything it could to help end their servitude.

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H&M has recently announced that it will ask suppliers and critical fabric mills to sign a commitment that their cotton does not come from Uzbekistan. It says that those who do not sign the commitment will not be allowed to work with H&M. This announcement follows the Cotton Campaign’s lengthy engagement with H&M, during which we have been calling for the steps set out in the Daewoo Protocol to be implemented. We are asking that H&M put language into their vendor agreements prohibiting the use of Uzbek cotton, which would put their commitment not to use cotton produced with forced labour into practice, and ensure this message reaches right down H&M’s supply chain.

State-sponsored forced labour in the cotton sector of Uzbekistan continues, and companies have a responsibility to conduct due diligence to ensure that they do not support the forced labour system with their purchasing.

H&M has a code of conduct that includes a prohibition of forced labour in the production of goods for H&M. H&M has signed the Company Pledge to work to ensure that forced child labour does not find its way into the company’s products.

The Cotton Campaign asks H&M to implement its commitments by taking the following steps, known as the Daewoo Protocol:

1. Establish a company policy that prohibits the use of Uzbek cotton and prohibits business with companies that are either invested in the cotton sector in Uzbekistan or using Uzbek cotton, including explicitly all companies of Daewoo International Corporation and the list of companies operating in Uzbekistan incorporated into the list here;
2. Implement the company policy on Uzbek cotton by incorporating language into vendor agreements and purchase orders that effectively prohibits suppliers from doing business with all companies of Daewoo International Corporation and the attached list of companies
3. Require suppliers, suppliers’ subsidiaries and suppliers’ affiliates to (a) establish a company policy that prohibits business with companies that are either invested in the cotton sector in Uzbekistan or using Uzbek cotton, including explicitly all companies/subsidiaries of Daewoo International Corporation, and (b) incorporate language into vendor agreements and purchase orders that prohibits their suppliers from doing business with all companies/subsidiaries of Daewoo International Corporation;
4. Remove all companies/subsidiaries of Daewoo International Corporation from your company’s supplier database. Lock suppliers out of your company’s supplier database that have not signed the revised vendor agreement and fully complied with point 3;
5. Verify compliance with the company policy by incorporating a Daewoo check into supplier social compliance audits; and
6. Release documentation of these steps to the Cotton Campaign.

Despite having signed the Company Pledge, it was the Cotton Campaign that informed H&M that they were purchasing from Daewoo. Importantly, H&M has established a policy and is in the process of requiring its direct, first tier, suppliers to sign a commitment to that policy and disqualifying companies that do not commit from business with H&M. Unfortunately, the risk that slave-made cotton enters H&M’s products will remain until the company pushes the policy down the next tiers of their supply chain, as outlined in the steps 3-5 of the protocol.

The Daewoo Protocol highlights Daewoo International Corporation, a subsidiary of the South Korean steel company POSCO that operates three cotton processing facilities in Uzbekistan and accounts for approximately 20% of all cotton processed in the country. As a direct beneficiary of state-sponsored forced labour in Uzbekistan, Daewoo is clearly violating international standards by exploiting children and adults for profit. The Protocol addresses the dynamism of the apparel industry by holistically introducing controls into companies’ supply chain management to ensure that any and all companies profiting from forced labor in the Uzbek cotton sector do not receive their business.

The Cotton Campaign calls on H&M to implement its pledge by implementing the Daewoo Protocol to ensure that there is no Uzbek cotton and no companies profiting from Uzbek cotton in the H&M supply chain.