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Cotton is in, but kids are still out
Today the Veritas human rights group in Uzbekistan distributed their preliminary report on this year’s cotton harvest, with some photos to accompany it. The report is not yet on the web, or in English, so I’ll post its most striking findings here. Activists from the group surveyed conditions in 11 provinces; they recently toured through [...]
Expelled for being sickened by cotton
It’s worth reading through the entire (slightly redacted) message below from the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, just to get a sense of the Orwellian humiliations people in Uzbekistan must endure during their annual “cotton campaign.” This student was lucky enough to get reinstated in her institute, from which she was expelled for having [...]
The essence of coercion: “We live subject to their orders…”
More documentation from the Fall 2008 harvest continues to emerge, this time in a remarkable report issued by the International Labor Rights Forum, compiled by Uzbek human rights activists. Based on 72 original interviews with parents, schoolchildren, teachers and farmers taken just after the harvest was completed, the report lays bare just how vicious state [...]
New form of child labor on cotton: cultivating seedlings
Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe’s Uzbek service (Radio Ozodlik) reported a week or so ago that schoolchildren in some areas of the Fergana Valley were being sent home with paper cones and seeds and told to grow 200 seedlings in their gardens for cotton farmers to plant later in the season. Just a homework assignment, [...]
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