forced-child-laboruzbekistanautumn2008

t 202 347-4100 f 202 347-4885 laborrights@ilrf.org www.laborrights.org
Uzbekistan update: Government still forcing young children to harvest
cotton despite pledges to ban the practice
A group of human rights defenders in Uzbekistan
International Labor Rights Forum
November 2008
This report is based on information gathered by human rights defenders within Uzbekistan in
September/October 2008. Contrary to the government of Uzbekistan’s assertions that it has
banned forced child labor, recent information suggests it continues to compel children as young
as 11 and 12 to pick cotton, closing schools and using other coercive measures to enforce
compliance. Although Uzbekistan has recently signed two ILO conventions against forced and
child labor, and issued a new decree ostensibly prohibiting the practice, information from
around the country shows that the government continues to rely on the state?orchestrated
mass mobilization of children to bring in the 2008 cotton harvest. Uzbekistan is the world’s
third largest exporter of cotton, and cotton is that country’s largest source of export revenue.
Children already in the fields for weeks
According to reports from nine of Uzbekistan’s twelve territorial units, (Jizzakh, Fergana,
Namangan, Syr Daria, Surkhandaria, Bukhara, Khorezm, Tashkent and Samarkand provinces) by
the third week of of September local governments and school administrators had already sent
children as young as the seventh grade (ages 13?14), and in some cases as young as fifth grade
(11?12) out to the fields to pick cotton. By the end of September, pressure to bring in the
harvest before rains began near the end of the month led local officials to order the smallest
schoolchildren, from first grade on, to labor on the harvest.
In Fergana, schools were closed and children were sent out from September 22, though a week
earlier those same schools forced children to sign statements that they would remain in school
over the fall semester. Journalists on the scene suggested that these statements were intended
to give local government officials plausible deniability if the children’s presence in the fields was
challenged.
In one Namangan district, journalists and human rights defenders observed children from
several schools, some as young as eleven, picking cotton. The children reported that each day
local government officials and bureaucrats from the local education department would visit the
fields to check up on the number of pupils out picking, and to make sure that harvest targets
were being met.
The Samarkand provincial government also sent its schoolchildren out to pick cotton on
September 22. Children as young as 13 were forced from their classrooms on that date, though
International Labor Rights Forum Continue reading »

forced-child-laboruzbekistanspring2008

Forced Child Labor in Uzbekistan’s 2008
Spring Agricultural Season
A Report Based on Surveys in Two Rural Districts in Uzbekistan
International Labor Rights Forum
And Human Rights Defenders in Uzbekistan
1
Note
This report was completed by a group of Uzbek human rights defenders known to the
International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF). While these individuals deserve credit for their
thorough research, the present situation in Uzbekistan requires that they remain anonymous.
Amnesty International’s 2008 report The State of the World’s Human Rights finds that in 2007
Uzbekistan’s “human rights defenders and journalists continued to report being threatened by
members of the security services for carrying out legitimate activities. Several reported being
assaulted and beaten and detained by law enforcement officers or people they suspected
working for the security services. Relatives spoke of being threatened and harassed by security
forces; some were detained in order to put pressure on human rights defenders.”1
The report focuses on the spring 2008 agricultural season. However, there have already been
several reports showing that the problems described here have continued during the current
fall 2008 harvest, as well, despite claims to the contrary. For example, the website Uznews.net
reported on September 26, 2008, “Schoolchildren aged 13 and over have been sent to pick
cotton in all districts in Samarkand Region despite government pledges not to use child labor
in this cotton harvest…. An official from the Pastdargom District education department said
this order had taken him and his colleagues by surprise because only few days before they were
ordered to ensure 100% attendances at schools.”2
ILRF continues to work with other human rights groups, socially responsible investors and
businesses to pressure the government of Uzbekistan to end its use of children in the cotton
sector immediately.
1 “Amnesty International Report 2008: The State of the World’s Human Rights-Uzbekistan,” Amnesty
International, http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/regions/europe-and-central-asia/uzbekistan, 2008.
2 “Schoolchildren sent to pick cotton in Samarkand Region,” Uznews.net,
http://www.uznews.net/news_single.php?lng=en&sub=top&cid=2&nid=7398, September 26, 2008.
2
Introduction
At the end of March and in early April this year, Uzbekistan’s parliament ratified the ILO
Convention on Minimal Age of Employment (No. 138, 1973) and the Convention on
Prohibition and Immediate Action for Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (No.
182, 1999). The very next month, however, under the direction of Uzbekistan’s central
government, local authorities and school administrations forced thousands of children out to
the fields for spring agricultural work. In temperatures of up to 35 degrees Celsius (96
Fahrenheit) children as young as 12 – 15 performed heavy labor, such as hoeing, weeding,
applying fertilizer and pesticides and transplanting young cotton plants. Children suffered
heatstroke, burns, and a variety of infectious diseases from the poor working conditions, long
hours, and lack of clean water and basic sanitation. School hours were truncated and for some
periods schools closed altogether to spur children into the fields. Continue reading »