2022 was supposed to have marked a turning point for Uzbek cotton, once synonymous with state-sanctioned slavery.

“When the international community ignores a country like Turkmenistan, it sends a message that some lives – and some struggles – matter less.”

Journalist Khudayberdy Allashov died last August, after a decade of persecution by the Turkmen authorities. They accused him of daring to write about systematic forced labor in the country’s cotton fields – an open secret that isn’t stopping some European textile brands from sourcing from Turkmenistan.

Uzbekistan’s new regulations for NGOs impose government control and interference in the implementation of projects funded by foreign organizations or individuals. This poses difficult questions for international donors including the European Union, USAID, United Nations agencies, and others who make grants available to civil society organizations. 

Major American retailers continue to hawk products made with cotton from Turkmenistan despite a long-standing U.S. Customs and Border Protection ban over findings of state-enforced slave labor in the Central Asian nation.