From the first days of May the Uzbek youth at secondary schools, lyceums and colleges in Bukhara, Samarkand, Jizzakh, Syrdarya, Khorezm regions and autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan were forced to attend spring cotton cultivation activities, includng weeding and tilling. It is reported that the same type of practice with forced spring labor is taking place in all other areas of the country. The minors from secondary schools involved in this type of forced spring labor are 13-16 years old (7-8-9th grades of school) and minors from lyceums and colleges are 16-18 years old.

From Monday to Friday the Uzbek youth involved in forced spring labor attend the local cotton fields from 13.00 afternoon till 18.00 evening. And on Saturdays and Sundays they attend the cotton fields from 09.00 of morning till 18.00 evening. Thus on Saturdays the classes for these groups of children are cancelled. The sources say the spring forced labor for the children would last until May 20-25.
This type of labor is not paid. The Uzbek authorities and theirorganizers of the spring forced labor prefer to call this process as “hashar”, which in Uzbek stands for unpaid voluntary physical activity.

Children often reach the local cotton fields on foot accompanied by their teachers and administration of the schools. They have to bring their own food and drinking water with them to the fields. They have to consume their food directly in the fields. There are no proper facilities and conditions, neither hygienic conditions for eating nor medical personnel to check the health conditions of the children forced to work.

Nasiba, an 8th grade girl from a secondary school in Bukhara region shares her observations: “Each day after our classes we do hilling in the cotton fields. On Saturdays and Sundays our work starts from the morning. We have to bring our own food and water with us. We have also to bring our work instrument with us. It could be a pick or sickle”

Sardor, a college student from Samarkand region was able to buy himself out from spring forced labor: “I am preparing for entrance exams to the university right now. They have taken everybody from our college to the cotton fields. I had to reach a deal with the college deputy director and give him money, and now I am free both from classes and forced labor. The major priority for me right now is preparing for entrance exams”

A beginning teacher at a lyceum in Karakalpakstan has also shared his concerns: “I have started working in the educational sphere recently after I finished the university three years ago. But for those three years I have managed to hate my job. Sometimes it is so difficult to understand whether I am a teacher or a farm worker. During spring months we are forced to be involved in weeding and tilling of the cotton plants; during summer days we are forced to get involved in pruning cotton plants; and during autumn season we are forced to pick the cotton crop.

Unless the Uzbek government find enough political will to acknowledge the problem of forced child labor and eradicate it fully, the problem of forced child labor in cotton cultivation and harvesting will remain in Uzbekistan for many years yet. To date, the Uzbek authorities have made only symbolic gestures.

On 26 March 2012 the Uzbek Cabinet of Ministers adopted Decree # 82 “On additional measures for 2012-2013 on implementation of the Conventions on Forced Labor and Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor ratified which Uzbekistan has ratified”. The Decree introduced a Government Action Plan for 2012-2013. The Uzbek authorities and diplomats have started advertising the above mentioned Decree and Action Plan widely as a measure on countering forced child labor in cotton harvesting. However neither the Decree, nor the Action Plan (the whole document comes in a 9 page document) acknowledges the forced child labor problem. The Action Plan has barely mentioned the forced child labor in cotton harvesting just in one of the provisions – Activity # 18 of the Action Plan says the following (highlighted by us – the Expert Working Group):

“Carrying out monitoring of prevention of forced labor of pupils of secondary schools in cotton harvesting; submitting an analytic report on the findings of the suggested monitoring together with recommendations to the Uzbek Cabinet of Ministers; deadline for the suggested activities – annually from August to October; Responsible organizations – the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population; the Ministry of Public Education; the Prosecutor General’s Office; Council of Ministers of the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan; regional hokimiats (regional administration – the Expert Working Group) and Tashkent city hokimiat”.

The measures suggested in the government Action Plan raises many questions: Why is it not possible to just ban forced child labor in cotton cultivation and harvesting? Why does the government Action Plan fail to mention the youth and adults who are also forced to work in the cotton fields? The International Labour Organisation Convention on forced labor includes all ages of people, and the Uzbek government has ratified the convention. Why does the government Action Plan propose monitoring only from August to October – the Uzbek authorities use the forced child labor during spring, summer and late autumn (November) seasons as well?

There could be one common response to those questions. The Uzbek authorities don’t actually want to eliminate the practice of forced child labor in cotton cultivation and harvesting. However the ongoing international criticism around this problem has started to have an effect.. The Uzbek authorities have felt obliged to take some minimal steps, even if at the level of amendments of existing legal norms. The international community and civil society in Uzbekistan should pursue all possible efforts to achieve full elimination of forced child labor in cotton cultivation and harvesting in the country.

Participants in the hearing included Theo van Boven, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Sanjar Umarov, Chairman of the Sunshine Coalition Uzbekistan, Patricia Flor, Special Envoy for Central Asia at the German Foreign Office, and Jan Egeland, Director of Human Rights Watch Europe and former UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs. They highlighted the importance of Western governments’ firmly supporting human rights in Uzbekistan, particularly in light of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) use of the Northern Distribution Network for its engagement in Afghanistan and the use of military bases in Uzbekistan by Germany and the U.S.

The German Foreign Office, represented by Special Envoy Patricia Flor, acknowledged that “initiating a [European Union] Human Rights Dialogue and intensifying cooperation between states has not yet moved as far as we would have liked towards a sustainable human rights situation.” Angelika Graf, Member of the German Parliament, urged the German government and all political actors to send the Uzbek government the clear message that state-controlled forced child labor shall no longer be tolerated.

Presenting the Uzbek state order system of cotton production, Craig Murray detailed the firm grip of the government of Uzbekistan over the entire cotton industry:

“You have to look on cotton not only as the means by which the Uzbek state funds itself in very large degree, but as a means of social control. The fact is that millions of people are effectively captive on state farms (…) they can’t choose not to be a cotton picker anymore. It’s not a choice open to them. If you are one of the small minorities of people in agriculture who actually figuratively own, at least a lease on your land, then you are anyway told what crops you have to grow, you’re told who you can sell them to, and you’re told what the price will be.”

While Craig Murray referred to Uzbekistan as a “totalitarian dictatorship”, Scott Horton, Harper’s Magazine, called it “the world’s largest family-owned business.”

On the urgent need for action, Jan Egeland, Human Rights Watch, urged participants, “to expect leadership from Germany,” after the German government played a central role in the removal of the EU sanctions against Uzbekistan, which had been imposed in the aftermath of the 2005 Andijan massacre. He added a plea to the EU to move from quiet diplomacy to a transparent, human rights-based policy on Uzbekistan, and to establish concrete benchmarks to effectively measure progress.

In concluding remarks, Theo van Boven, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, challenged Western leaders, stating

“We should never abandon the people of Uzbekistan because they deserve much better than what they have now under this repressive regime.”

This event was co-sponsored by the German-Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, Anti-Slavery International, Human Rights Watch, Uzbekistan Press Freedom Group, terres des hommes, Eurasian Transition Group, INKOTA-netzwerk and the Clean Clothes Campaign. The videos were realized by ecofilm sustainable film production.

The seven films are:

Part I: The state of human rights in Uzbekistan
Part II: State-sponsored child labor in the Uzbek cotton fields
Part III: The responsibility of economic actors
Part IV: The role of Germany and the EU
Part V: Termez, NATO, and conflict of democratic values
Part VI: Karimov regime: The “world’s largest family-owned business”
Part VII: What should the West do?

View all videos here.

The letter precedes the US government’s planned release of its annual Global Trafficking in Persons (GTIP) report and the ILO’s annual International Labor Conference in June. Under the US Trafficking Victims Protection Re-authorization Act (TVPRA), the Uzbek government must present a written plan that constitutes “significant efforts” to eliminate forced labor, to avoid a downgrade in the 2012 global trafficking report, which would trigger automatic sanctions.

The Uzbek government has failed to meet this condition and has instead denied the existence of forced labor and has continued the state order system for cotton production. The state quotas are identified in the 2011 GTIP report as the root cause of the forced labor.

“Denying the International Labor Organization access to Uzbekistan during the cotton harvest for several years running and muzzling local activists who try to document forced child labor show that the Uzbek government is not credibly tackling this issue,” said Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia Researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The US government needs to insist on independent monitoring by the ILO and local rights groups at a minimum to avoid a downgrade in the trafficking report.”

The Uzbek government remains one of the most repressive in the world. Reports about the 2011 harvest by the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights highlighted the coercion of children as young as 10 and adults, allegedly including employees of the U.S. company General Motors, to pick cotton and to fulfill government quotas of cotton production.

During the 2011 cotton harvest, the Uzbek government also arbitrarily detained at least three well-known rights activists who were trying to monitor the use of forced and child labor during the cotton harvest, threatening criminal charges against two.

View the full text of the letter by clicking here.

Karmatov was an activist with the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan in Guliston, Syrdarya Region until April 29, 2006, when he was arrested along with fellow activist Azam Farmonov. He was charged with extorting money from farmers in Syrdarya Region to solve their problems with local officials. Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience and named him a 2011 “priority case.”

Karamatov’s relatives have repeatedly warned that the activist faced violent forms of torture, such as being forced to stand naked in the cold. His wife, Namuna Karamatova, reported that the activist’s health seriously deteriorated during his imprisonment. In 2008, a medical examination in prison determined that he had developed a serious form of tuberculosis in both of his lungs.

Karamatov’s release came on the heels of a visit by a US delegation headed by Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Suzan J. Cook on March 27, 2012 to Tashkent. Such visits by high ranking US and EU diplomats often include negotiations to release individual prisoners of conscience. These negotiations benefit both sides: Uzbekistan demonstrates good will and ‘signs’ of progress on its human rights record, and the US (or EU) delegation does not return home empty handed – and with tangible evidence that their engagement and dialogue with the dictatorial regime is productive.

However, the productivity of this US visit seems to have been reduced to nil in light of the surrounding pattern of arrests and charges against other activists. By extending prison terms and detaining additional Uzbek journalists and human rights defenders, the GOU communicates that it will continue to deny its citizens’ their basic human rights.

Since January, 4 Uzbek human rights defenders and journalists have been imprisoned or their sentences extended:

1. Mukhammad Bekjanov completed a 13-year prison sentence in January, and by the end of the month the GOU extended his prison sentence for an additional 5 years for alleged “violation of internal prison rules,” a charge routinely used to justify extending the terms of prisoners of conscience. Mr. Bekhanov is the former editor of the newspaper Erk, a voice of opposition to the President Karimov regime. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Bekjanov and fellow Uzbek journalist Yusuf Ruzimuradov, hold world records in terms of the length of prison sentences for journalists.

2. Abdurasul Hudoynazarov, former chairman of the Angren branch of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan Ezgulik, recieved similar treatment by the GOU. Mr. Hudoynazarov was convicted for 9.6 years in 2006 and is serving time at Penal Colony No. 21. The prison administration recently charged him with “violation of internal prison rules.”

3. Erkin Kuziev, Chairman of the Ferghana Branch of Ezgulik, was charged with Articles 168 (Fraud) and 211 (Bribery) by the GOU in early April, as reported by Ezgulik on April 9.

4. Gulnaza Yuldasheva, member of the Uzbekistan Initiative Group of Human Rights Defenders, was detained on charges of bribery, as reported on April 12, 2012.

In the past, law enforcement agencies would plant drugs to justify the detention of activists. Now they now routinely use charges of fraud or bribery. The pretexts change, but the pattern of imprisoning and torturing human rights defenders and journalists continues and needs to stop. Protecting Uzbek people’s rights to freedom of expression and association is essential to ending the state system of forced labor for the cotton harvest and laying the foundations of democracy.

See Human Rights Watch, “Uzbekistan: Activist Free but Crackdown Widening” for more coverage

Over the last decade, the government of Uzbekistan has formed similar action plans, but the use of forced labor and forced child labor in the Uzbek cotton harvests is grave, persistent and systematically made possible by national government policy. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and International Organisation of Employers (IOE) have consistently reported that the Government systematically mobilizes children and adults to work the cotton harvest. Under this state-controlled forced labor system, there are an estimated 2.4 million children forced out of school and into the dangerous and dirty work of cotton harvesting each year. Their teachers, and just about anyone else in an organized group, are also forced to work the cotton harvest. In 2011, even employees of General Motors’ plants in Uzbekistan were reportedly forced to take leave from their jobs and work the harvest.

This latest announcement of an action plan by Mr. Karimov’s administration closely follows the report of the ILO Committee of Experts on the application of standards, released in March. The ILO Committee calls on the Government of Uzbekistan to accept an ILO monitoring mission and technical assistance. Mr. Karimov’s administration has refused independent observation and support from the ILO in the past. As reported by Human Rights Watch, “The government has moved to dismantle the independent legal profession and has closed off the country to independent monitoring and human rights work.” There is, as Human Rights Watch reports, “No One Left to Witness” the use of forced labor, forced child labor and repression of critical voices by the Mr. Karimov’s administration.

Governments, investors and purchasers of Uzbek cotton products should recognize that the formation of an action plan by Mr. Karimov’s administration offers little hope of ending forced labor and forced child labor in cotton production, and can seize the moment to communicate their support for an ILO mission to investigate and monitor fundamental labor rights in Uzbekistan.

“children aged 11–17 years old have been observed working full time in the cotton fields across the country; the mobilization of children has been organized by way of instructions passed through Khokimyats (local administration), whereby farmers are given quotas to meet and children are mobilized by means of the education system in order to help meet these quotas; … in over a third of the fields visited, children stated that they were not receiving the money themselves; quotas for the amount of cotton children were expected to pick generally ranged between 20–50 kilos per day; the overwhelming majority of children observed were working a full day in the field and as a result, were missing their regular classes; children worked long hours in extremely hot weather; pesticides were used on the cotton crop that children spent hours hand picking; some children reported that they had not been allowed to seek medical attention even though they were sick…”

In light of the consensus about the widespread nature of forced child labor in Uzbekistan, the Committee reported that it “must express its serious concern regarding the [Uzbek] Government’s continued insistence that children are not involved in the cotton harvest in Uzbekistan.” The Committee called on the authorities in Tashkent “to take immediate and effective time-bound measures to eradicate the forced labour of, or hazardous work by, children under 18 years in cotton production, as a matter of urgency” and reiterated previous ILO calls for the Uzbek government to accept an ILO monitoring mission during this year’s upcoming harvest, calls that Tashkent has consistently rejected in the past.

Unfortunately, not all the fashion world seems to have gotten the message. According to the NY Times, at the recent spring shows in Paris, acclaimed designer Rei Kawakubo showed a line of garments made of fabric from Uzbekistan. Back in the fall, Gulnara’s people put out the defense that Guli garments were made of silk not cotton. Maybe that’s the case with Kawakubo too. If so, it’s a distinction without a difference since, as the Daily Times of Pakistan has pointed out, in Uzbekistan silk is also produced with the abundant use of child labor.

Isn’t it about time that the people who seek to set our tastes in fashion realized that their consumers do not want to wear garments produced through the forced labor of children?

“Forced child labor in the cotton fields remains a serious concern. The government took no meaningful steps to implement the two International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions on child labor, which it ratified in March 2008. Despite repeated requests, it continued to refuse ILO access to monitor the harvest.

The government continues to force 1.5 to 2 million schoolchildren as young as nine-years-old to help with the cotton harvest for two months a year. They live in filthy conditions, contract illnesses, miss school, and work daily from early morning until evening for little to no pay. Hunger, exhaustion, and heat stroke are common.

Human Rights Watch is aware of several cases of authorities harassing activists who tried to document forced child labor. In September authorities detained activists Gulshan Karaeva and Nodir Akhatov while they photographed children forced to pick cotton in the Kashkadarya region.

Also in September, responding to concerns from Human Rights Watch and other groups, the organizers of New York Fashion Week cancelled a show by the president’s daughter, Gulnara Karimova, who serves as Uzbekistan’s permanent representative to the UN and its ambassador to Spain….

The Uzbek government continued to refuse to cooperate with international institutions but faced virtually no consequences for this intransigence. It continues to deny access to all eight UN special procedures that have requested invitations, has failed to comply with recommendations made by various expert bodies, and blocks the ILO from sending independent observers to monitor compliance with the prohibition of forced child labor in the cotton industry.”

“This type of coercion is actually all too common,” Acemoglu and Robinson conclude, “and is indicative of the sorts of institutions that not only fail to impart human capital to children, but are at the root of much more widespread economic and social failure. And it is not in place by accident or as an inevitable remnant of some past practices…”