Uzbek Cotton Harvest: Extortion, Bribery, Forced Labor

Apr 13, 2015

Extortion and bribery fueled the forced labor behind Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest in autumn 2014, a coerced mass mobilization that took teachers, health care workers and millions of other employees away from their duties for several weeks, according to a report released today by the nonprofit Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights.

While fewer children were pushed into the fields during the most recent harvest, the study found an unprecedented degree of extortion of individuals and businesses that included keeping people in fields even though there was no more cotton to pick so that workers had to continue to pay for room and board, and the setting of unattainable quotas so people had to pay to make up deficits.

“The Government’s Riches, the People’s Burden,” which builds on the Uzbek-German Forum’s preliminary findings last November, reports that the government mobilized more public employees in the 2014 harvest than in previous years, likely to make up for fewer child laborers. Uzbekistan has cut back on the use of child labor in the cotton fields, following worldwide condemnation—including by the U.S. State Department, which in October placed Uzbekistan among 12 countries with the worst forms of child labor.

“Students and the sick suffer during the harvest time,” says Nadejda Atayeva, president of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia. “Schools and health clinics cannot function with so many staff sent to pick cotton. Students cannot receive the quality of education that they deserve, and medical care is inaccessible to people, even when they are very ill.”

At least 17 people died and numerous people were injured as a result of the cotton harvest and poor or unsafe working and living conditions, according to the report, which details how workers were forced to toil long hours picking cotton in unsafe and unhealthy working conditions that often included no access to clean drinking water. Workers were forced to live in garages, unused farm buildings or local schools in crowded and unsanitary conditions often without heat or hot water, even during cold weather at the end of the season.

The annual cotton harvest, estimated to exceed $1 billion, disappears into an extra-budgetary fund in the Finance Ministry to which only the highest-level officials have access, the report states.

“The enrichment of officials creates a powerful disincentive to enact real reforms of the cotton sector, and unlawful practices undermine the rule of law, nurturing an environment in which the government denies its use of forced labor and impunity prevails,” the report’s authors write.

The report concludes with specific recommendations for governments and nongovernmental organizations to address Uzbekistan’s abuses of human rights, including investigating and prosecuting companies that benefit from or contribute to the forced labor system of cotton production, which is in violation of international and national laws.

Experienced Uzbek-German Forum monitors, fluent in Uzbek, researched the cotton harvest and labor practices in the capital, Tashkent, and in six regions in Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan Still Using Forced Labor for Cotton Harvest

Feb 3, 2015

A coalition of worker and human rights organizations, including the Solidarity Center, is urging the U.S. State Department to maintain Uzbekistan’s rank at the bottom of its “Trafficking in Persons” report when it is released this year. (Read the full document.)

“In 2014, the government of Uzbekistan forced more than a million citizens to work in the cotton fields under threat of penalty, for its benefit, and as a matter of state policy,” the groups write in a 15-page document detailing the Uzbekistan government’s coercion of public servants and other workers—including children—to toil in cotton fields.

The document notes that at least 17 people died due to unsafe working conditions during last fall’s harvest. Workers forced to pick cotton were not given any time off—including weekends and holidays. Organizations monitoring the harvest reported that workers were provided with no protective gear, such as gloves.

Public organizations, including schools, were required to provide between 30 percent and 60 percent of their staff for the duration of the harvest, and in some cases, up to 80 percent of their staff. Children often had no classes during these weeks because teachers were working in the fields. Clinics and hospitals had few or no medical personnel.

Many employees were threatened with loss of employment, loss of utilities and other public services, social exclusion, fines, administrative harassment, and criminal prosecution if they did not participate in the cotton harvest, the report states.

The 2014 Trafficking in Persons report gave Uzbekistan a “Tier 3” ranking, a designation that indicates a country is not complying with the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards nor making attempts to do so. The coalition says that maintaining the Tier 3 ranking is essential to convey to the Uzbekistan government the need to end forced labor.

A Tier 3 ranking makes countries liable to sanctions, which could include the withholding or withdrawal of U.S. non-humanitarian and non-trade-related assistance.

The coalition further notes that “the government of Uzbekistan’s use of forced labor to produce cotton is supported by its denial of fundamental rights of association, freedom of press and due process to enable its use of forced labor to produce cotton.”

The 2014 Trafficking in Persons report found that Uzbekistan’s “government-compelled forced labor of men, women, and children remains endemic during the annual cotton harvest….There were reports that some children aged 15 to 17 faced expulsion from school for refusing to pick cotton.”

Uzbekistan also was at the bottom of the 2014 Findings on the “Worst Forms of Child Labor” report released in October by the U.S. Labor Department.

Uzbek Children, Teachers Forced to Labor in 2014 Cotton Harvest

Nov 14, 2014

Uzbekistan continued using forced labor, including children, for the country’s recent cotton harvest, with more teachers than ever compelled to toil in the fields this year, according to a report released today by the Uzbek-German Forum.

In schools across the country this fall, 50 percent to 60 percent of all teachers were absent from classrooms at any given time, leaving schools severely understaffed and unable to conduct normal classes.

The report, a preliminary look at Uzbekistan’s state-sponsored labor system of cotton production this season, found that the government forced fewer children to work but replaced them with university students and public- and private-sector employees.

Yet the report documented numerous instances of child labor in several regions and concluded that “these cases indicate that the government of Uzbekistan has not undertaken durable, structural reforms to eliminate definitively child labor in Uzbekistan. Nor has the government made it clear to local officials that child labor will not be tolerated and task them with enforcing laws prohibiting child labor.”

The assessment parallels that of the U.S. State Department, which in October placed Uzbekistan among 12 countries with the worst forms of child labor. The State Department report, “Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor,” listed Uzbekistan as one of three countries, along with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Eritrea, that received the assessment because of government complicity in forced child labor.

The Uzbek-German Forum report, compiled by experienced researchers in six regions of Uzbekistan as well as the capital, Tashkent, found a large number of injuries and deaths during this season’s harvest, including at least 17 people who died and 35 who were injured after being struck by cars or tractors. Individuals forced to pick cotton were housed in garages, unused farm buildings or local schools, nearly all of which were unheated and without water or hygiene facilities.

For decades, more than 1 million Uzbeks have been forced to pick cotton each fall. They are threatened with the loss of jobs, social benefits and public utilities if they do not participate. Many face fines and criminal prosecution, according to the report.

Profits of Uzbek’s cotton sector support only the government, according to the Uzbek-German Forum. Farmers are forced to meet state-established cotton quotas, purchase supplies from one state-owned enterprise and sell the cotton to a state-owned enterprise at artificially low prices. The system traps farmers in poverty, and the state profits from high-priced sales to global buyers who use the cotton for goods made by brand-name retail and apparel supply chains.

Read the full report: “The Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights Preliminary Report on Forced Labor During Uzbekistan’s 2014 Cotton Harvest,”