Forced Labor and Involuntary Servitude.

Report to the UN Human Rights Committee, 98th Session, Committee on Civil and
Political Rights regarding Uzbekistan’s failure to implement Article 8 of
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights regarding Forced Labor and
Involuntary Servitude
Primary Contact : Bama Athreya, Executive Director, International Labor Rights
Forum (bama.athreya@ilrf.org)
January 13, 2010
I. Submitting Organizations :
This report is submitted on behalf of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of
Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT),
American Center for International Labor Solidarity, Freedom House, International Labor
Rights Forum and the National Consumers League
The AFL-CIO is a federation of 57 national and international labor unions. The AFL-CIO
represents 11.5 million members, including 3 million members in Working America, its
community affiliate. Lead contact: Stanley Gacek, Associate Director, International
Department, sgacek@aflcio.org.
The American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, is a US trade union representing 1.4
million members. As a leader in Education International and co-chair of the US Child
Labor Coalition, the AFT promotes policies and programs that eradicate the worse forms
of child labor globally and puts children in the classroom where they are they are
afforded the opportunity of becoming full participants in the social and economic
development of their communities. Lead contact: Antonia Cortese, Secretary-Treasurer,
acortese@aft.org/
The American Center for International Labor Solidarity is the international technical
assistance organization associated with the AFL-CIO and promotes worker rights around
the globe. The Solidarity Center has offices in 25 countries and has programs in 67
countries worldwide. Lead contact: Timothy Ryan, Regional Program Director Asia-
Europe, tryan@solidaritycenter.org.
Freedom House is an independent watchdog organization that supports the expansion of
freedom around the world. Freedom House supports democratic change, monitors
freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights. Lead contact: Sam Patten,
Senior Program Manager for Eurasia, patten@freedomhouse.org.
The International Labor Rights Forum is a non-profit advocacy organization advocating
for just and humane treatment for workers worldwide, including an end to child labor,
forced labor, discrimination in the workplace and obstacles to the right to organize. Lead
contact: Bama Athreya, Executive Director, bama.athreya@ilrf.org.
The National Consumers League is a private, nonprofit advocacy group representing
consumers on marketplace and workplace issues. NCL provides government, businesses,
and other organizations with the consumer’s perspective on concerns including child
labor, privacy, food safety, and medication information. Lead contact: Reid Maki,
Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards, reidm@nclnet.org.
II. Relevance of Submission to 98th Session Review of Uzbekistan
In the upcoming 98th session in March 2010, the Government of Uzbekistan
implementation of commitments to the ICCPR will be reviewed. The submitting
organizations respectfully note that that among rights detailed in the ICCPR are freedom
from compulsory labor and involuntary servitude. Article 8 of the ICCPR states that 1)
No one shall be held in slavery; slavery and the slave-trade in all their forms shall be
prohibited; 2) No one shall be held in servitude; 3) No one shall be required to perform
forced or compulsory labour. .
The Government of Uzbekistan has reported on its obligations to this article as follows,
in its submission of March 31, 2008 (relevant excerpts only):
477. Although Uzbekistan is not a party to the United Nations Supplementary
Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and
Practices Similar to Slavery of 1956, the core provisions of the Convention are
observed in Uzbek territory. A ban has been imposed on forced and involuntary
labour.
478. Article 37 of the Constitution contains a provision to the effect that
everyone has the right to work, to free choice of work, to fair working conditions,
and to protection against unemployment in accordance with the procedures
established by law.
479. Forced labour, except in execution of a court sentence or in other instances
specified by law, is prohibited.
480. Labour relations are governed by the rules laid down in the Labour Code.
Article 6 prohibits discrimination in employment relations: “All citizens have
equal opportunities to acquire and exercise labour rights. The imposition of any
restrictions or the granting of privileges in labour relations on grounds of sex, age,
race, nationality, language, social origin, property or official status, attitude to
religion, opinions, membership of civil society associations or other
circumstances unrelated to a worker’s professional qualities or the results of his
work is not permitted and constitutes discrimination. Differences due to the
inherent requirements of the work concerned or the special care extended by the
State to persons requiring a greater measure of social protection (women, minors,
the disabled and others), do not constitute discrimination. Anyone who considers
that he or she has been subjected to discrimination at work may request a court to
remove the discrimination and order compensation for the material and moral
harm suffered”.
483. On 15 January 2007 the Government adopted the National Programme of
Action for the Welfare of Children, together with an array of implementation
measures providing for the formulation and introduction of practical arrangements
for monitoring child labour and for ratification the Minimum Age Convention
(No. 138) and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182). The
Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis has now taken a decision to ratify these
two ILO Conventions and has transmitted the matter to the Senate for approval.
484. On 7 January 2008 Uzbekistan adopted, on the recommendation of the
Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Rights of the Child (Safeguards) Act,
which incorporates virtually all of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights
of the Child. Article 10 of this Act stipulates that the State must protect children
against all forms of exploitation, including physical, mental and sexual aggression
and torture and other cruel, harsh or degrading forms of treatment, as well as
against soliciting for sexual purposes and involvement in criminal activities or
prostitution.
485 In order to protect children’s rights, freedoms and legitimate interests and
to coordinate the work of State and other bodies, the Act provides for the
establishment of an official children’s rights agency (Children’s Ombudsman).
486. Uzbekistan’s legislation prohibits all forms of forced labour. Forced
labour, i.e. coercion to perform work under threat of some kind of punishment
(including as a means of maintaining labour discipline), is prohibited. Work is not
deemed forced labour when it is required under a legislative act, as part of
military or alternative service, during a state of emergency, under a final sentence
of a court, or in the other cases prescribed by law.
Notwithstanding this submission the following additional information was requested by
the Human Rights Committee at its 96th session in Geneva, 13 – 31 July 2009 (relevant
excerpt only):
Elimination of slavery and servitude and child labor (arts. 8, 24)
Please provide information on the effectiveness of the steps taken by the State
party to enforce the legal provisions (Rights of the Child [Safeguards] Act of
2008) aimed at eradicating child labor, including very young children e.g. in the
cotton industry (previous concluding observations, para. 25).
The Government of Uzbekistan has and continues to engage in repeated, serious
and direct violations of Convention 105. As a matter of state policy and enforced
by various forms of punishment, the Government systematically mobilises both
school-aged children and adults to work in the annual cotton harvest for purposes
of economic development. In addition to the forcible nature of the work, workers
are working in extremely exploitative, harmful and sometimes life threatening
conditions, paid too little, sometimes resulting in debt bondage.
III. The Government of Uzbekistan Continues to Mobilize Children, Youths and
Adults as Compulsory Labor in its Annual Cotton Harvest
Uzbekistan is the world’s sixth largest producer of cotton, and the third largest exporter.
For decades, it has used the forced labor of its schoolchildren starting in the early primary
grades, college and university students, and civil servants, to harvest that cotton by hand.
Unlike child labor in agricultural sectors in some other countries, this practice is
organized and controlled by the central government. Each fall, shortly after the start of
the school year, the government orders schools to close and school administrators to send
the children out to the fields, where they remain until the cotton harvest is brought in.
Under pressure to meet centralised cotton production quota, local administrators shut
down rural and some urban schools for up to two months, with tacit consent and
endorsement of the Ministry of General Education and the central government. Headteachers
are issued with cotton harvesting quota, which are subdivided among teachers
and then among the schoolchildren in each class.1 Children failing to meet their cotton
harvesting quota are threatened with expulsion from schools and their families are subject
to pressure and intimidation.2 Although local authorities have said that children are
picking cotton voluntarily out of patriotic feelings, university authorities and school
principals force students to join farmers in the fields in the beginning of the season. “If
you fail to show up at the cotton field, you will be kicked out of the university or you
may pay $100 to the faculty dean” said a student at the Tashkent Agricultural
University.3 Similar testimonies have been gathered during the 2007, 2008 and 2009
harvest seasons. Estimates prepared by Uzbek human rights defenders working
regionally suggest that around 200,000 children may be involved in cotton harvesting in
the Ferghana region alone, and an additional 60,000 in Jizzakh province. There are 13
provinces in Uzbekistan, all cotton growing, and field observations suggest that none of
them is excepted from the ongoing practice of mobilizing school children and college
students to pick cotton against their consent. Testimony from interviews with the
children and adults in the region confirms that the labour is coerced and compulsory.
In 2005 the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) reported forced child labour by
school children to up to three months.4 An independent survey conducted by Uzbek
human rights advocates in late 20065, a new study of the EJF6, and reports from human
rights advocates within Uzbekistan published by the International Labor Rights Forum
1 IWPR investigation into Uzbekistan cotton 10.12.2004 cited by Ibid.
2 Ibid.p.4
3 Report by the Human Rights Group Veritas
4White Gold: The True Cost of Cotton; Uzbekistan, Cotton and the Crushing of a Nation. Environmental
Justice Foundation, 2005. London, UK
5 Group of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists of Uzbekistan, “Forced Child Labour in Uzbekistan’s
2007 Cotton Harvest: Survey Results”, April 2008.
6 EJF, 2009: Still in the Fields: The continuing use of state-sponsored forced child labour in Uzbekistan’s
cotton fields; Environmental Justice Foundation, London, UK, 2009.
(ILRF) in 2008 and 20097 all contained direct evidence of the use of forced labour in
Uzbekistan. A recent report by the EJF confirmed the continuing use of state-sponsored
forced child labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields with information on the 2008 harvest.
The report mentions threats, beatings and detention for those failing to meet their picking
targets, children missing up to three months education as their schools are closed and
inhumane working conditions and accommodation leading to exhaustion, serious injuries
and illness with a number of reported deaths as a consequence.8
In its 2006, 2007and 2008 reports the US Department of State affirmed that the
Government of Uzbekistan did not effectively implement laws and policies to protect
children from exploitation in the workplace despite government decrees prohibiting those
under age 18 from engaging in manual cotton harvesting and other jobs with unhealthy
working conditions. The 2008 State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report released
in June 2009 also confirmed and reinforced findings from previous years that men and
women are trafficked for the purpose of forced labour in agriculture. In the report of 2009
it is stated that “Uzbekistan did not make significant efforts to eliminate the use of forced
labour of adults and children in the cotton harvest and did not make efforts to investigate,
prosecute or convict government officials complicit in the use of forced labour during the
harvest”.9
Adults are also subject to forced labour during the cotton harvest. Local administration
employees, teachers, factory workers and doctors are commonly forced to leave their jobs
for weeks at a time and pick cotton with no additional compensation. In some instances
refusal to co-operate can lead to dismissal from work.
Neighbourhood committees are allegedly enlisted to ensure the implementation of these
orders. Human rights activists reported that interviews they held with Mahalla (area
division) chairmen in Fergana, Khorezm and Surkjandarya regions confirmed that failure
to recruit 30 to 40 residents to work in the cotton harvest would result in their having to
pay bribes of around 70-80,000 sums (US$65-75) to local authorities. Violence and
beatings have also been meted out by those working for hokims (regional governors)
when too few local people have been conscripted to the fields.10
In 2008 in the Samarkand region the authorities temporarily closed down food and
clothes markets to force traders to pick cotton. Each morning the police forced the market
7 “Pick All the Cotton: Update on Uzbekistan’s Use of Child Labor in 2009 Harvest,” A group of human
rights defenders in Uzbekistan in cooperation with the International Labor Rights Forum, Washington, DC,
December 4, 2009 available at http://www.laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications-andresources/
UzbekCottonFall09Update.pdf; also “’We Live Subject to Their Orders’: A Three-Province
Survey of Forced Child Labor in Uzbekistan’s 2008 Cotton Harvest,” A group of human rights defenders
in cooperation with the International Labor Rights Forum, Washington, DC, June 4, 2009 available at
http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/cotton-campaign/uzbekistan/resources/10811
8 EJF, 2009: Still in the Fields: The continuing use of state-sponsored forced child labour in Uzbekistan’s
cotton fields; Environmental Justice Foundation, London, UK, 2009.
9 US Department of State: “Trafficking in Persons Report”, June 2006, 2008, 2009.
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2007/82807.htm
10 Cotton idiocy growing strong, Uznews.net, 29.10.2008,
http://www.uznews.net/news_single.php?lng=en&cid=2&sub=top&nid=7862
traders and shoppers out of the market, and patrol drivers were reportedly travelling
through the region to drive cotton pickers to the fields. They reportedly also sometimes
force drivers and their passengers to pick cotton in nearby fields for no pay. Women –
including mothers at home with young children and babies – claimed that local officials
warned them that they would lose their child benefit payments if they did not pick
cotton.11
Forced child labour has a substantial negative impact upon the education of the country’s
rural schoolchildren as from the age of seven, children living in rural areas can expect to
lose up to three months of their education every year as they are sent to the fields. This
represents a loss of up to one third of the time available for study each year. Rural
children are said to lag behind their urban peers in schooling, due to participation in the
cotton harvest. According to UNDP’s 2006 Human Development Index (HDI) report,
indicators of life expectancy, access to improved sanitation and water along with
education have been constantly decreasing in Uzbekistan. The HDI for Uzbekistan is
0.696, which gives Uzbekistan a rank of 113 out of 177 countries.12
For their arduous work, children are paid very little or nothing. Students are assessed the
cost of their meals which in practice may leave the students in debt by the end of the
harvest season.13 As one Uzbek human rights activist explained, the small amount of
money that children earn through cotton harvesting is taken by the government to
compensate for food, transport and accommodation provided, which is charged as debt to
the children throughout the period of the harvest.14 As a result some child workers are in
fact placed in debt bondage by the state.
Due to continued international attention to, and criticism of, Uzbekistan’s practice of
forced child labor, the authorities have sought to minimize the publicly visible evidence
of their involvement in the practice during the September – November 2009 harvest.15
Thus they stopped overseeing the safe transport of children to and from the cotton fields.
Unless they brought drinking water from home, children were forced to drink unhealthy
water from canals and ditches. They ate their food sitting on the grounds beside the
cotton fields, where pesticides and herbicides are widely used. There were no medical
personnel attending to their health needs and the physicians themselves have also been
mobilized to pick cotton. This year it was nearly impossible for children to obtain
permission to leave the cotton fields even for reasons of illness or poor health.
While in many developing countries child labor is driven by poverty, in Uzbekistan the
situation is entirely different. There is evidence that senior officials of the Government
of Uzbekistan ordered that Uzbek schoolchildren be forced to work in the cotton fields.
The orders to mobilize schoolchildren during the 2009 harvest were documented to
11 Elderly people, breastfeeding women ordered to pick cotton in Samarkand Region, Uznews.net,
16.10.2008
12 http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf
13 Ezgulik Human Rights NGO report 2006.
14 EJF interview with Galima Bukharbaeva, Uzbek human rights campaigner (March 2005) cited by
Ibid.n.4
15 “Pick All the Cotton: Update on Uzbekistan’s Use of Child Labor in 2009 Harvest.”
originate from local governments, which in turn received instructions from the central
authorities in Tashkent. All these instructions were given orally.
On September 22, 2009, Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyaev held a conference call with
local officials, prosecutors, police chiefs, and farmers in all of Uzbekistan’s regions. He
instructed local governors to arrange a so-called “khashar,” which is a form of forced
labor, the practice of which has been known since Soviet times.16 Initially, the cotton
harvest “khashar” was expected to last until October 12, but was later extended a number
of times. In practical terms, this meant that all schoolchildren, college students, and local
civil servants in cotton growing provinces were subject to “conscription.”
Such conference calls took place every 15 days at the initiative of the Prime Minister,
who is charged with overseeing Uzbekistan’s agricultural sector. During these
conference calls, Mirziyaev instructed local governments and farmers when to begin
certain agricultural tasks such as seeding, weeding, using pesticides and defoliants,
harvesting, etc. This style of governance suggests that little has changed since the times
of the Soviet kolkhozes and sovkhozes.
According to a farmer in the Bukhara region, in early October all farmers received a
telegram signed by the Prime Minister stating that: “By October 15 of this year, all farms
that have not fulfilled their contractual obligations for the sale of raw cotton will be
singled out. Separate explanatory talks will be held with those farmers who have not
fulfilled the harvest plan. Above all, the harvesting of cotton must be organized using
each hour of clement weather. Khokims, prosecutors and departments of internal affairs
of districts must take under control those farms where cotton has not been picked and
organize the final cotton harvest. In those cases where farms have not complied with their
contractual obligations, a schedule will be made to levy damages from them. Under the
law, their land lease will be revoked.” According to this farmer, other farmers and local
officials responded to this threat by keeping schoolchildren in the fields longer than
previously planned in order to fulfill the plan.
There were also reports that local administrations created divisions charged with
mobilizing schoolchildren and their teachers to participate in the cotton harvest. Human
rights activists reported that in Angren city the headquarters for the campaign to mobilize
schoolchildren and university students to participate in the cotton harvest was based at
the city khokimiyat’s (local administration) department of education.
In another example reported on the website Ferghana.ru, on September 27, more than one
thousand students of Bukhara State University were forcibly sent to pick cotton under
threat of expulsion. A signed and sealed letter sent to students who failed to show up for
the harvest stated that:
“In accordance with the Presidential Decree of August 20, 2008, ‘On the
Organization and Conduct of the Cotton-Harvesting Campaign’ and in accordance
with directives from local administrations, the participation of students in the
16 The term “khashar” means voluntary, collective work done for the sake of the common good or to help
out one’s neighbors, a practice that is in keeping with Uzbek tradition. However, the Uzbek regime exploits
the concept to put a positive spin on its policy of forced labor, which contravenes international conventions
to which it is a signatory, as well as its own constitution.
cotton harvest is considered ‘practical training in the autumn fields’. Students who
do not take part in field work without valid reason will be expelled. In connection
with this, I urge you to appear immediately for the cotton harvest. Otherwise, I
warn you that you could face expulsion. S.S. Raupov, Dean of the Humanities
Faculty of the Bukhara State University.”
In 2009, the government of Uzbekistan became increasingly hostile toward efforts to
gather information about its child labor practices, and increasingly hostile toward
international proposals for an assessment or technical assistance mission by the ILO.
Under ILO procedures, international employers and trade unions brought forward
information related to forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector and requested an ILO
review of the country’s compliance with its commitments to ILO conventions on forced
labor (Nos. 29 and 105). International union and employer representatives were prepared
to discuss Uzbekistan and ILO Convention 105 as one of 26 individual country cases to
be reviewed by the Committee on the Application of Standards at the ILO’s annual
International Labour Conference in June 2009. Despite promises by some Uzbek
officials to engage with ILO procedures, the Government of Uzbekistan failed to register
a delegation to attend the June conference, and thus the case could not be placed on the
agenda. However, after the conference began, representatives from the Government of
Uzbekistan did appear, and made a floor statement denying that the problem was
pervasive or that it was government-orchestrated, claiming instead that it was perpetuated
by ignorant families. Instead of seeking ILO engagement to develop appropriate
strategies to implement its ban on child labor, the Uzbek government chose to deny the
problem and once again refused to invite an ILO assessment mission to observe the fall
2009 harvest.
IV. Conclusion
It is the state policy of the Government of Uzbekistan to systematically require persons to
work in the cotton fields against their will, under the threat of a penalty and in extremely
perilous conditions for the purposes of the country’s development. Even if the forced
labour in the cotton field were not the result of a de jure state policy, the Government of
Uzbekistan still violates Convention 105 for failing to ensure the effective observance of
that convention. Contrary to the recent assertions by the Government that it has taken
action to ban this practice, including the ratification of ILO Convention 182 on the Worst
Forms of Child Labour and the creation of a National Action Plan on Child Labour,
multiple credible reports from Uzbek human rights defenders and independent media
showed that forced labour was once again used during the September- November 2009
cotton harvest season. There is a vast disparity between legal commitments made to
eradicate forced labour and their practical implementation.
We recommend that the Human Rights Committee raises this issue with the government
of Uzbekistan and make a special subject of concern the gap between Uzbekistan’s legal
commitments and the daily practices with regards to forced child labor. He Committee
should encourage the government of Uzbekistan to closely cooperate with the
International Labour Organization and invite it for technical assistance.