…Uzbek government’s reliance on forced child labour…

Uznews.net – Schoolchildren in Jizak Region have been ordered to leave their classrooms and help farmers cultivate cotton instead.

The 15 and 16-year-olds have been instructed to pull up weeds to help maximise the cotton crop.

A local teacher said the campaign was preventing school leavers from revising before their graduation exams.

Sources claim that Jizak Regional education department was involved in sending high school pupils to the cotton fields. The campaign is no surprise to many activists trying to end the Uzbek government’s reliance on forced child labour to maximise its yields from cotton growing and exports each year.

Uzbekistan became a signatory to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Minimum Age Convention (C178, 1973) and Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (C182, 1999) in 2008, but this appears to have had no effect on the lives of millions of Uzbek schoolchildren and college students.

Tashkent’s EU partners have tried and failed to secure an ILO inspection of the use of child labour during Uzbekistan’s 2011 cotton harvest.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso personally asked President Islam Karimov to allow the inspection during his visit to Brussels in January.

Uzbekistan exports about 1 million tonnes of cotton fibre every year. Cotton is currently trading at about $2 per pound.

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