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Frontline Defenders Condemn Attacks on Monitors of Forced Child Labour
Frontline Defenders, a UK-based human rights organization, has noted in its annual report that the problem of forced child labour continues in Uzbekistan:
In Uzbekistan, HRDs [human rights defenders] denouncing the use of forced child labour in the cotton fields were threatened, questioned and detained.
Among those facing repeated reprisals for her reporting was Elena Urlaeva.
Frontline has [...]
Speaking Cotton — A New Film on Forced Child Labour
A new film about forced child labour in the cotton industry in Uzbekistan was released in December.
Speaking Cotton, a film by Stefanie Trambow and Erik Malchow, portrays the ongoing exploitation of children in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields. In German and Russian, with English subtitles.
Activist Urges Uzbek Officials to Comply with Anti-Forced Labour Law
Dmitry Tikhonov, a human rights defender in the city of Angren, has appealed to Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov to stop breaking the law and end the exploitation of children in the cotton harvest, the independent website uznews.net reported.
“I addressed my demands to Rustam Azimov because he is personally responsible for overseeing the implementation of [...]
Authorities Threaten To Take Foster Child of Human Rights Activist
A human rights leader in Uzbekistan says she is suffering backlash for her work.
Police have come to the home of Elena Urlaeva of the Human Rights Alliance in Tashkent and attempted to remove her 7-year-old foster child, Muhammad, the independent website uznews.net reported.
The aim of the visit was quite simple: he [the policeman] said [...]
UNICEF Confirms Uzbek Government Invitation to Observe Child Labour
UNICEF representatives have been officially invited to Uzbekistan to conduct monitoring of reports of the use of child labor, Radio Ozodlik reported.
Jean-Michel Delmotte, the representative of UNICEF in Tashkent, confirmed that the proposal had come from the government of Uzbekistan, the Russian news agency Regnum reported. Delmotte said that the Uzbek authorities promised [...]
Uzbek Monitor Reports from the Cotton Fields: “Everyone to the Harvest”
A monitor working with the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights sent an account of his recent drive across Uzbekistan through the provinces, risking arrest to take pictures of school-children working in the cotton fields. He describes the empty marketplaces, with everyone sent off to the cotton fields, the dusty, bumpy roads, the children laboring in [...]
Activists Oppose “Business as Usual”; Picket Uzbek-US Forum
Twenty organizations today signed a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging the US government not to resume “business as usual” with Uzbekistan due to persistent and serious human rights problems such as torture and forced child labor.
The groups included human rights organizations Amnesty International USA, the Berlin-based European Center for [...]
Booted from Fashion Week, Dictator’s Daughter is Venue-Shopping
After IMG, the organizers of New York City’s Fashion Week decided to cancel the show of Gulnara Karimova over her association with the autocratic Uzbek regime, she began shopping for a more amenable venue.
Now the daughter of Uzbekistan’s dictator Islam Karimov is planning to relocate her disgraced show to the posh restaurant and event space [...]
Mobilization of Students to the Cotton Fields Begins in Uzbekistan
The mobilization of students to the cotton fields has begun in Uzbekistan, the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights reports.
According to reports from Uzbek monitors from the provinces of Kashkadarya, Surkhandarya, Khorezm, and Samarkand, on September 6, students from the trade schools and academies were sent to the fields to pick cotton.
The average age of [...]
Uzbek Government Claims No Child Labour
The government of Uzbekistan has completed an investigation into allegations of child labour, and claimed to have found none, human rights activist Elena Urlayeva reported today on the list Human Rights in Central Asia. Uzbek human rights activists have vowed to press their cause further with a complaint to the prosecutor’s office.
Earlier it had been [...]
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REPORTS
Download 2010 SOAS Report What Has Changed
The production and export of cotton continues to be a major feature of the economy, politics and everyday lives of the people of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This report analyses the nature and causes of their use of child labour in the cotton sector.