Uzbek children working in the cotton fields. Photo by Uzbek German Forum for Human Rights

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament voted unanimously against the inclusion of textiles in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), the pact that has governed EU-Uzbek trade since 1999. The vote prevented a lowering of tariffs on EU imports of Uzbek cotton, which make up at least 25 percent of Uzbekistan’s exports.

The language of the legislation now stipulates that the inclusion of textiles “should only be put to the vote by Parliament after international observers, and in particular the International Labor Organization (ILO), have been granted by the Uzbek authorities close and unhindered monitoring.”

The Uzbek government has failed to invite the ILO to inspect cotton fields during the harvest season, despite calls from employers and unions at the ILO annual meeting as well as from the International Labor Rights Forum and other groups.

In February, the European Council approved an amendment to the PCA, extending the customs and tariffs breaks to Tashkent. But the European Parliament had yet to approve it, and it still had to go through committees.

EU members of parliament became concerned about increasing reports of the exploitation of children in the cotton harvest. A coalition of international labor and human rights organizations, joined with Uzbek human rights groups working both inside the country and in exile, have been advocating for some years with MEPs to try to stop forced child labor, especially after Uzbekistan ratified the ILO convention against the worst forms of child labor in 2009.

In June, the EU Parliament held a hearing on the issue and heard testimony from Anti-Slavery International, and other NGOs campaigning against forced labor.

Joanna Ewart-James, Supply Chain Program Coordinator at Anti-Slavery International testified:

Ninety percent of Uzbek cotton is picked by hand, with almost half being picked by state-sponsored forced child labor. Uzbekistan is not a country with which we should be doing business and clearly not with the cotton and related sectors.

Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, a French MEP, asked on her blog why the agreement should be signed, when Tashkent wouldn’t allow the ILO to monitor the cotton harvest. Liam Aylward, an Irish MEP also issued a press release on the issue, and Catherine Bearder and Leonidas Donskis, MEPs from England and Lithuania respectively, lodged queries with the European Commission.

The European Parliament’s International Trade Committee must next vote on the measure on November 22, and the PCA is expected to come to a plenary vote in December.

On October 3, MEP Paul Murphy, a member of the Socialist Party/United Left Alliance from Ireland, member of the Europarliament’s International Trade Committee, organized a panel on Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Nadejda Atayeva of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, who regularly monitors forced labor in Uzbekistan, was invited to testify. A number of MEPs pledged their support for blocking Uzbek textile imports, including Hannes Swoboda, vice president of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, Foreign Affairs Committee member and member of EU-Uzbekistan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee and Norica Nicolai of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, who is vice chair of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence, and also a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Uzbekistan has generally denied that it uses young children in the harvest, although monitors this season have found children as young as 10 in the 4th and 5th grades sent to work in the fields.

ILO signatories can allow children 15 years or older to work after school, and children of 14 years under certain conditions. But unlikely other countries where agricultural work occurs in a family farm context, in Uzbekistan, local administrators remove students from middle school through college from classes, and then bus them to the cotton fields under threat of penalties for themselves and their families. In the state-controlled agricultural sector, even nominally private farmers must meet quotas and accept fixed prices for their produce.

UNICEF has been permitted by the Uzbek government to make some limited observation of the cotton harvest, but has cautioned that this is not a substitute for the kind of thorough monitoring that the ILO could do of labor practices.

This story first appeared on EurasiaNet’s Choihona blog.

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 5th Grader in Karakalpakstan, Photo by Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights

Buoyed by the success of the picket to protest inclusion of Gulnara Karimova in New York’s Fashion Week, the International Labor Rights Forum is planning a picket next week in Washington, DC as Uzbekistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Elyor Ganiev arrives for meetings with the business elite in the capital.

The Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan is infamous for its widespread abuses of human rights and its state policy of forcing children to work in cotton fields across the country. That won’t stop the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce from advocating for continued business partnerships with the brutal Uzbek regime.

Every year, the government of Uzbekistan removes up to two million children from schools across the country and forces them to pick cotton. Reports continue to flood out of Uzbekistan that children and adults are being forced into the cotton fields right now during the current harvest season. This widely documented, abusive state policy enriches a cadre of elites and fuels a regime characterized as “an authoritarian state” by the U.S. Department of State. Uzbekistan is one of the largest cotton producing countries in the world and cotton harvested there by forced child labor finds its way into the U.S. garment industry. Additionally, the government of Uzbekistan has been criticized for jailing independent journalists and human rights defenders, torturing prisoners and a range of other rights violations.

The US-Uzbekistan Annual Business Forum, sponsored by the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce, will feature top business and government representatives from the US and Uzbekistan including the Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Elyor Ganiev. Join us outside the US-Uzbekistan Annual Business Forum to call for an end to forced child labor and human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.

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

Islomiddin Dolimov, Uzbek People's Movement. Photo by Judy Skartvedt

Driven from Lincoln Center — the main stage for New York’s Fashion Week — the Uzbek dictator’s daughter Gulnara Karimova moved her runway to Cipriani, a prestigious midtown events space, after organizers proved reluctant to associate themselves with Uzbekistan’s notoriously awful human rights record.

Labor and human rights activists originally scheduled a picket at Lincoln Center weeks ago when Karimova surfaced on the schedule for Fashion Week, sponsored by Mercedes Benz, which enjoys a lucrative joint venture with Uzbekistan to sell vehicles.

But IMG, the organizers of Fashion Week, said they were “horrified” to learn from Human Rights Watch of the torture and political imprisonment in Uzbekistan as well as the used of forced child labor, the New York Post reported.

A spokesman for Karimova’s Guli fashion line said that the show was being relocated “for security reasons,” invoking the 10th anniversary of terrorist attacks on the US, the Post reported. IMG did not respond to a request for comment, but the Post quoted sources denying the security angle. Gulnara herself appeared to be missing in action — disgruntled models and a prominent hairdresser were inconvenienced without the director of their show.

Police requested that a dozen demonstrators at Lincoln Center move across the street from the entrance, making their action less visible. So they decamped to Cipriani, where they found that Uzbek émigrés and members of the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) were already pacing the sidewalk in front of the marbled entrance, chanting “Hey hey ho ho, child labor’s got to go!” and “We won’t buy it, we don’t want it! Uzbek cotton makes us vomit!”

As some demonstrators stood with large posters depicting children hunched over cotton bolls in Uzbekistan, some of the US labor activists’ young children, dressed in campaign t-shirts and sandals and carrying bags of cotton, handed out flyers.

Islomiddin Dolimov, a refugee from Uzbekistan and chairman of the US branch of the Uzbekistan People’s Movement (UPM), said he and other group members had driven from Arizona where they now reside. A witness to the government massacre of demonstrators in Andijan in 2005, Dolimov said he had been forced to leave his family behind still exposed to police harassment.

“They are under pressure and summoned to the police for interrogation every week,” he said, yet he felt he had to speak out on behalf of the many victims of Uzbek government oppression.

Yusuf Sobirov, another UPM member, said his daughters had been forced to pick cotton since the ages of 8 or 9, and were still mobilized from college to work long hours in the fields.

“Children and students can work from 8 or 9 hours to 14 hours a day, and depending on their age and hours worked, they might pick up to 100 pounds and earn only the equivalent of $2.50 to $5.00 a day — from which they have to pay for their own meals and transportation,” Sobirov said

Cipriani turned out several rows of security men, the NYPD set up gates and kept a patrol car nearby, and at least one hefty Russian-speaking dark-suited fellow was busy photographing the demonstrators and saying “no comment” to queries about his affiliation.

The faces of many passers-by lit up in recognition when they saw the protest posters — it turned out they were now familiar with the story of the disgraced dictator’s daughter from reading the popular Post. The Post has had the scoop on Gulnara’s doings all week. Reporter James Covert, who hadn’t covered either fashion or foreign policy in the past, evidently found the convergence of the human rights and fashion topics on his city beat to be compelling.

Picketer's son. Photo by Judy Skartvedt.

Many of the fashionably-dressed guests of the Guli show took leaflets from the demonstrators and said they were just becoming aware of the issue, and a few tottering on high heels ducked in embarrassment. One patron began arguing with a protestor about the need for “stability” provided by strong-armed rule. Uzbek officials deny the exploitation of children in the cotton industry, but have refused to permit the International Labor Organization to send in monitors during the harvest season.

An activist who requested anonymity said she had managed to get a ticket to the show and smuggled herself in to the hall. Yet Gulnara — who cuts an unmistakable figure — was nowhere in evidence in the half-empty room and never appeared on stage with the models. The activist overheard a Guli representative in heated discussion with an unidentified female reporter, who was finally ushered backstage after indicating she would cover “her side of the story.” The activist described the audience as “mainly an older crowd with many Uzbeks and perhaps some heiresses and maybe some Armani people.” Audience members told her they had heard the show was moved due to concerns about “terrorism and 9/11.”

Tim Newman, an ILRF organizer, told EurasiaNet that while this week, Karimova was a focus, he was hoping people would look at the broader goal of ending the purchase of cotton produced using child labor.

“Throughout the last week, we’ve sent a clear message to Gulnara that we — the consumers here — are concerned with what’s going on in Uzbekistan,” he said.

More than 60 companies and a major apparels association have pledged not to source their cotton in Uzbekistan, says Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN), a commitment activists say is significant.

“The Tashkent cotton fair is coming up in October, so we need to make sure that their suppliers down to the bottom of the supply chain are respecting the ban,” added Newman.

Gulnara’s show fizzled in less than an hour, and reporters and protestors outside were still unable to confirm she had ever been there, as rumors circulated that she was still in Europe.

Katya Kumkova provided reporting for this story which first appeared on Choihona at EurasiaNet.

Picket of Karimova's Fashion Show in NYC. Photo by Judy Skartvedt.

Have you been reading all the news about the Uzbek dictator’s daughter and how labour and human rights campaigners were able to convince the organizers of Fashion Week to cancel Gulnara Karimova’s fashion show?

This seemed like an impossibility at one time, as Karimova was here last year and backed by powerful Fashion Week sponsor Mercedes Benz. Yet the organizers responded to the pleas of the cotton campaign and disinvited this symbol of Uzbek repression.

There’s much more we need to do to raise awareness and get action to stop the sourcing of Uzbek cotton by Western companies that help prop up Uzbekistan’s dictatorship.

During Fashion Week (September 8-15), if you live in the New York area, you can take part in a picket in New York to urge the apparels industry to pledge to refrain from sourcing their cotton in Uzbekistan.

You can also call on Cipriani, the events space where Uzbek dictator’s daughter Gulnara Karimova is now rescheduling her disgraced fashion show, not to provide her a space either. (Cotton campaign protests have been successful in getting IMG, the organizers of Fashion Week, to cancel her show at Lincoln Center).

Already 60 brands and a major industry association have pledged not to source cotton in Uzbekistan as forced child labour is used there, thanks to the work of Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN). The International Labor Rights Forum (ILHR) has already successfully petitioned Gymborree, A Child’s Place and other companies recently who have responded to thousands of signatures and changed their policies.

Campaigners are looking for more signatures for new campaigns now addressing these brands:

o Forever 21

o Aeropostale

o Urban Outfitters

o Toys ‘R Us

If you’re a parent of children or teenagers like me, you know at this back-to-school time these are exactly the shops that your kids go to for clothes, accessories and toys. So sign the petition and tell your children that kids just their age are forced to miss school and work in the cotton fields. If you have a teen aged 13 or older, they can help raise awareness and sign these petitions as well at Change.org (you must be 13 or older to use this site) — it’s a great way to help young people understand the connected world they live in. High schools often ask students to find a community service project to work on — learning about forced child labour and signing these petitions to the companies where they shop could be just such a project.

But she’s not giving up and has been searching for a new venue. According to the New York Post, she has contracted with Cipriani, an upscale restaurant and event space in Manhattan, to put on her show anyway this Thursday at noon, the Post confirmed.

Labour and human rights activists in New York who have been protesting her presence during Fashion Week are now calling on the owners of Cipriani not to allow the show to go on, as a symbol of oppression in Uzbekistan and the use of forced child labour. The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) has organized a petition at Change.org urging foreign embassies that have been contacted not to host her show, either.

Now the daughter of Uzbekistan’s dictator Islam Karimov is planning to relocate her disgraced show to the posh restaurant and event space Cipriani, the New York Post reported:

Next up on the menu at Cipriani: hot potato!

Gulnara Karimova, the fashion-designing daughter of Uzbekistan’s ruthless dictator, aims to stage her runway show at upscale restaurant Cipriani after getting booted from Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, The Post has learned.

After protests from human rights groups and pickets by Uzbek émigrés about torture, political imprisonment and forced child labor, IMG said it was “horrified” and first ask Karimova to withdraw voluntarily. When she didn’t, the Fashion Week organizers abruptly disinvited her.

IMG is said now to be in negotiations about a refund of $30,000 in rental fees, only a portion of the funds that Karimova had shelled out to display her Guli ethnic clothing line, says the Post.

As she was searching for a location, Karimova also reportedly reached out to a number of friendly foreign missions, including those of Russia, Spain and the United Arab Emirates. The Uzbek president appointed his daughter as ambassador to Spain and also envoy to UN organizations in Geneva.

Cipriani, which hasn’t confirmed the event according to the Post, has itself been mired in controversy with the owner having pled guilty to $10 million in tax evasion.

Despite the cancellation, a coalition of labor and human rights groups vowed to stage their picket of Fashion Show on September 15 to call on the apparel industry not to source cotton in Uzbekistan.

Already more than 60 US and European companies and a major industry association have pledged not to use Uzbek cotton and have called on Tashkent to allow the International Labor Organization to inspect the cotton fields during the harvest, Responsible Sourcing Network reported.

This article originally appeared on Choihona at EurasiaNet.

Gulnara Karimova is the daughter of strongman Islam Karimov, whose regime is widely criticized for its brutal violations of human rights and for sponsoring forced child labor in the country’s cotton fields. Karimova serves as her country’s ambassador to Spain. New reports from Uzbekistan reveal how young people are removed from school and are forced to pick cotton to meet government-imposed production quotas. The organizations, including the American Federation of Teachers, the International Labor Rights Forum and the Open Society Foundations, urge the fashion industry to take a stand immediately and implement a ban on cotton from Uzbekistan.

Various organizations are still going ahead with organizing a rally and fashion show on Thursday September 15 from 11am to 1pm ET at Lincoln Center to show the fashion industry that children are still exploited in the production of cotton. To join the rally, go to the ILRF website.

For more information contact:
Tim Newman, tim.newman@ilrf.org, 617-823-9464 or 202-347-4100 x113
Tom Lansworth, tlanswor@aft.org, 202-393-6351

International Labor Rights Forum

Labor and human rights activists are planning to hold a demonstration outside her show in New York City on September 15 with the slogan “Forced Child Labor is Out of Style!”

Every year, the government of Uzbekistan removes up to two million children from schools across the country and forces them to pick cotton. This widely documented, abusive state policy enriches a cadre of elites, including the Karimov family, and fuels a regime characterized as “an authoritarian state” by the U.S. Department of State.

Uzbekistan is among the largest cotton producing countries in the world and cotton harvested there by forced child labor finds its way into the U.S. garment industry.

The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) is calling for people in the New York area to come and support the action:

We need your support this month in New York to end this abuse! Join us in telling Gulnara Karimova, who prides herself on using Uzbek textiles, that we won’t let children become fashion victims. Come to a rally on the streets outside her fashion show, where young New Yorkers will put on their own fashion show, walking the runway to urge justice for their peers in Uzbekistan.

Find out more details and RSVP online here.

The rally to stop forced child labour in Uzbekistan will take place Thursday, September 15 from 11 am to 1 pm at The Studio at the Lincoln Center, which is at the corner of W. 65th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

For more information contact Tim Newman at tim.newman@ilrf.org or +1-202-347-4100 x113.

After more than 360 people contacted The Children’s Place about its policies related to forced child labor in cotton from Uzbekistan, the company has confirmed that it instructs its suppliers not to use Uzbek cotton, joining scores of other companies who have made similar commitments, the International Labor Rights Forum reports.

Jane Singer, Vice President of Investor and Media Relations at The Children’s Place commented:

The Children’s Place commends the efforts to end forced child labor in Uzbekistan and will continue to do everything we can to support these efforts.

The International Labor Rights Forums has started a new petition to the clothing company Carter’s to get another brand to focus on removal of Uzbek cotton from their supply chain, as it is produced by forced child labor:

Carter’s has a policy against using child and forced labor, but it has not publicly addressed the unique state-sponsored practice of forced child labor in Uzbekistan nor has it provided any information about how it ensures that its suppliers do not use Uzbek cotton tainted by these egregious human rights abuses.

Your signature works! In the past, campaigns organized by the ILRF were effective in getting Abercrombie & Fitch, Gymborree and the Children’s Place to announce policies prohibitng the use of Uzbek cotton.

Add your signature now to send a message to Carter’s to uphold international labor rights!