Date of publication: September 25, 2009
Source: Independent World Report
» Read the original article [1]
By Tasneem Khalil
This is one of the most shocking stories of forced labour that involves children.
The setting of this story is the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan – one of the most brutal among post-Soviet dictatorships. The Islam Karimov regime is notorious for its ruthless repression of any kind of opposition or threat – political, social or economic.
One example of this repression – a massacre – shook the world in May 2005, when Uzbek National Security Service troops opened fire on anti-government protesters in the eastern city of Andijan killing more than a thousand men, women and children. Earlier, in 2003, a forensic report commissioned by the British embassy in Tashkent confirmed cases where political prisoners were boiled to death.
Uzbek activists report that, in the name of fighting the threat of Islamic militancy, the regime operates a massive program of torture, imprisonment and executions. Of course, whether the Islamic threat is real or manufactured, remains a big question.
“Reports of torture or other ill-treatment stem not only from men and women suspected of membership of banned Islamic groups or Islamist parties or of having committed terrorist offences, but from all layers of civil society, including human rights activists, journalists and former – often high-profile – members of the government and security forces. Many of them have alleged that they had been tortured or otherwise ill-treated in custody in order to extract a ‘confession,’” Amnesty International noted in a recent statement.
In this backdrop, Uzbekistan is the sixth largest producer of cotton in the world. When it comes to the export of cotton, it is the third largest – earning over $1 billion yearly, through the export of 800,000 tonnes of cotton. And – most importantly – given that Uzbekistan is a control economy, its cotton sector is one of the major sources of income for the Karimov regime.
As International Crisis Group described in 2005, the economics of cotton in Uzbekistan is simple and exploitative. Millions of the rural poor work for little or no reward growing and harvesting the crop while the profits go to a small group of elites.
When I asked exiled Uzbek journalist Umida Niyazova about this arrangement, she detailed, “All profits from the cotton sector are concentrated in the hands of the president, his family and those close to him. Farmers who grow 90% of cotton crop are in a situation that the cultivation of cotton is unprofitable for them. The state artificially sets low prices, while the farmers buy the supplies needed for production at market prices. They bear criminal responsibility for selling their own crops to anyone but the state. They cannot refuse to grow cotton as it would cause them to lose their land.”
As I enquired, organisations working on forced child labour in Uzbekistan described one of the most brutal routines of the Islam Karimov regime: Each September, as the cotton harvesting season begins in Uzbekistan, the government shuts down most of the schools and forces the schoolchildren out to the cotton fields to pick cotton. This countrywide mobilisation of forced labour is coordinated centrally. Human rights groups estimate that more than 200,000 children are involved each year, as for 2-3 months schools are turned into suppliers of cheap/free child labour.
“We are aware of other countries where state-sponsored forced labour takes place, but, none that targets children in a manner similar to Uzbekistan,” Joanna Ewart-James of Anti-Slavery International told me.
In 2008, International Labor Rights Forum reported: “Schoolchildren as young as fifth grade (eleven years old) were sent out to pick cotton, and, most remained in the fields into November. Orders clearly came from provincial governors to district governors, from there to district education departments, to individual schools. Schools were assigned quotas to fulfil, and principals of schools that did not meet the quotas were threatened with dismissal. [Children] performed arduous work under hazardous conditions for full work days and then were transported back to their local schools and allowed to go home for the night. Children fourteen and older were housed in unsanitary field sheds for the duration of the picking season. There were no days off.”
Until 2004, the horrors of Uzbek cotton were largely hidden from the world. This changed when a group of Uzbek activists launched an appeal drawing international attention to the plight of the children. One of the first organisations to respond to that call was Environmental Justice Foundation.
“EJF investigators first went to Uzbekistan in 2004. We were horrified by how widespread the problem was then – and still is today. One of the human rights defenders we met with, Mutabar Tajibayeva, had recently launched an appeal, supported by nineteen Uzbek NGOs, calling on Western companies to stop buying Uzbek cotton, as long as children are forced to labour in the harvest,” Juliette Williams, Campaign Director at Environmental Justice Foundation told me how it began.
Since then, an international campaign against child labour in Uzbekistan has taken shape. Organisations like Environmental Justice Foundation, International Labor Rights Forum and Anti-Slavery International are now part of the campaign that is fighting to free Uzbekistan’s children from state-sanctioned slavery.
One organisation that is oddly missing from the picture is the United Nations agency tasked with advocating for the rights of children: Unicef. Unicef has an office in Uzbekistan and according to the Uzbek prime minister himself, out of all the international organisations working in the country “only Unicef is known by people in every corner of the republic, thanks to its presence on the ground.”
“We understand that Unicef has a significant programmatic presence in Uzbekistan, with over fifty staff based in the country, and, also that Unicef has excellent access to Uzbek government officials. Despite this, Unicef has failed to use its position to provide the international community with any credible information on forced child labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector,” said Bama Athreya of International Labor Rights Forum. “Unicef did conduct a survey of child labour in Uzbek cotton in early 2006 which was widely discredited by the international community for its deeply flawed methodology. Since that time, we wonder why Unicef has not used its unique position and access to develop thorough, credible and replicable information about the nature of the problem and its root causes? This has been extremely disappointing to us.”
Indeed, as I searched through the Unicef website, apart from a few cursory mentions of child labour here and there, I could not find anything substantial. Unicef maintains an odd silence on the problem of state-sanctioned child labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector. Why? Maybe, this is a hint. Excerpts from an Unicef press release, issued in December 2007: “The Unicef representative in Uzbekistan, Mr. Reza Hossaini, has been awarded the order Do’stlik (National Friendship). ‘It is a mark of the highest contribution in strengthening the cooperation between Unicef and Uzbekistan in developing the young generation,’ said the president of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, in a statement… In receiving the presidential order, Mr. Hossaini thanked government, ministries, civil society and partners at national and local level for their commitment and hard work and said: ‘Together we have achieved a great deal and this order will further inspire us to do even more for women and children in the country.’”
When I asked Umida Niyazova about this, she did not mince her words, “Unicef has an office in Uzbekistan. They hold ineffective formal meetings and events, they never publicly criticise the government and never demand that the government admit and address the problem of child labour. You will not find much information about child labour from their reports or their website. So, the national friendship award from the brutal Uzbek regime is the price for such kind of loyalty.”
At present, Reza Hossaini is the Unicef representative in Turkey. I recently emailed him for his comments on accepting the award from the Uzbek government. As I write this, I am yet to receive a reply from him. However, Unicef is not the only party guilty of silence, if not complicity, in Uzbekistan.
On July 12, 2009 – International Day against Child Labour – a group of forty-seven Uzbek human rights activists in exile, sent a renewed appeal to the international community calling for action against child labour in Uzbekistan. “We urge the US government and the European Union to take effective measures to prevent cotton products bearing traces of forced child labour from gaining access to their markets. Europe and the US abolished slavery in their countries, but, by purchasing Uzbek cotton products, they are encouraging slavery in this Central Asian country. That Uzbek cotton continues to benefit from the General System of Preferences (GSP) that reduces import tax duties for Uzbek cotton and textile, can also be viewed as an endorsement of slavery,” the appeal read.
“The EU, as a whole, has not been positive or engaged. [EU] relations with Uzbekistan appear to be led by Germany, a long-time ally and trading partner of the Uzbek government. Strategic interests – whether energy resources or military bases – sadly seem to be taking precedence over moral and ethical issues relating to human rights abuses entailed in the sale of a commodity to Europe,” said Juliette Williams. “For the past four years, EJF has been pressing for the removal of tax preferences for Uzbek cotton coming into Europe – a step that has been taken by the EU against Belarus, when labour abuses came to light. However, the European Commission continued to avoid the issue, clearly not wanting to sour trade relations with the regime. It is absurd that the EU continues to give tax preferences to cotton produced using forced labour.”
“After the 2005 massacre in Andijan, most of the European countries distanced themselves from the Uzbek regime. However, Germany still maintains a close relationship with Uzbekistan,” Umida Niyazova – currently in exile in Germany – told me. “The military base in Termez [used by Germany] and economic ties mean that Uzbekistan has an influential EU member as its ally. Publicly, Germany pursues a policy of constructive dialogue with Uzbekistan, despite worsening human rights record, including massive use of child labour.”
“Ironically on this issue, it is the private sector that is leading the way and stating that they don’t want to do business with the regime until there is real change – it’s governments and the EU that are having to play ‘catch-up’ with companies that are way ahead in terms of policy-setting,” Juliette Williams told me.
She was referring to the actions taken by major European and North American brands and retailers in response to calls for boycotting Uzbek cotton in their products. Among the brands that have banned Uzbek cotton from their supply chains are big names like Tesco, Wal-Mart, Marks and Spencer and Levi Strauss.
But, that list ends somewhere.
One of the major European companies that resist boycotting Uzbek cotton is H&M. In public statements, the company condemns forced child labour in Uzbekistan. However, H&M claims in its website, “It is often virtually impossible to trace the cotton because it is traded a number of times – and because we do not buy any cotton ourselves.” I checked this claim with Juliette Williams since Environmental Justice Foundation has been working for years on the traceability of cotton.
Juliette Williams refuted the claim saying, “Identifying the source of cotton used by major brands and all the steps along the supply chain is possible. It can be done and has been done. No one thinks that tracing cotton is simple. But, it is certainly not impossible. Look at companies like Tesco and Wal-Mart, which have made a public commitment to avoid Uzbek cotton. The fact that cotton at its various stages of production and processing is traded internationally is important, as there is always paperwork that enables transit through customs. In short, we know that at every stage somebody knows where the cotton is coming from. Companies need to spend some effort, ask the right questions and let their suppliers know what is required, or, in the case of Uzbek cotton, what they want to avoid. They do it for quality reasons, why not for ethical reasons too?”
When I emailed H&M seeking its comment on my investigation that revealed two H&M suppliers in Bangladesh are using fabric made of Uzbek cotton in their productions, H&M emailed back: “We do not demand that our suppliers in Bangladesh keep us informed about the source of fabric or yarn. We can not exclude the possibility that some of the suppliers you have been in contact with could supply fabric or yarn for H&M products.”
Another major European company that does not publicly boycott Uzbek cotton is Inditex. As my investigation found that two Inditex brands – Zara and Bershka – are directly sourcing their garments from a supplier in Bangladesh who imports 45%-50% of its cotton from Uzbekistan, I asked Inditex for its comments on specific findings of my investigation. However, Inditex chose not to comment on those specific inquiries.
When I asked Juliette Williams for her comments on the findings of my investigation, she said “Over the past four years there has been a growing international awareness of the use of forced child labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields. As a result of media coverage and consumer awareness, many of the major retailers have denounced the use of forced child labour, and publicly stated that they will no longer accept Uzbek cotton in their supply chains. If these companies are taking cotton from Uzbekistan, via Bangladesh, it is almost certain that it has been produced using forced child labour, undermining their public statements and undermining consumer confidence in these brands. If the companies are actually aware of the source of the cotton, or even perceive the likelihood it would prove to be a shocking and highly damaging blow to their credibility.”
I asked Umida Niyazova for her reaction, “I think, companies which ignore calls to boycott Uzbek cotton, simply demonstrate their tolerance to the shameful practice of child labour. Uzbekistan is a dictatorship. This regime currently holds around five thousand political prisoners. Citizens around the world can support democracy and human rights in my country by boycotting brands which use Uzbek cotton in their production. I hope, soon, we will be making a list of these brands available.”
Meanwhile, this September, the children are still out in the fields.