In Uzbekistan, where public employees are forced to work in harvests, the Solidarity Center joins with coalition partners to end forced labor. Credit: Timur Karpov.
In Uzbekistan, the Solidarity Center supports civil society efforts to combat forced labor in the country’s annual cotton harvest where, as recently as 2015, the Uzbek government forced 1 million doctors, teachers, nurses, students and private-sector workers to harvest cotton.
The Solidarity Center works with the Cotton Campaign, a coalition of labor rights and human rights organizations, whose efforts have led to elimination of child labor and a significant reduction in forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest.
Through the Cotton Campaign, the Solidarity Center pushes for complete elimination of all forms of forced labor, including recent moves by the government to compel teachers and other public-sector employees to clean highways and perform other public maintenance work. With its partners, the Solidarity Center calls on the Uzbek government to implement and enforce the right of all agricultural workers to form, join, and participate in democratic labor unions of their own choosing and allow independent journalists and human rights defenders to monitor cotton labor without fear of reprisals, coercion or intimidation.
Nearly two dozen participants from three countries joined in a recent leadership seminar in Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan, to discuss strategies for labor relations in inspectorates, unions and NGOs to fight labor corruption. “I didn’t know that this was such a relevant...
To focus attention on protecting workers from Central Asian countries who are migrating abroad to earn their livelihoods, the Solidarity Center was part of a broad coalition that organized a high-level conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to coincide with UN World Day...
A groundbreaking cooperative agreement seeking to improve working conditions and prevent forced labor was signed this week for workers, 'at all stages of cotton and textile production in Uzbekistan.' Agreement signatories include U.S.-based Center for International...
