Thirteen year-old Bakhodir Pardaev is the latest victim of the state-sanctioned forced child labour that occurs in Uzbekistan during the cotton harvest. The country has repeatedly reneged on promises to outlaw child labour and continues to ignore international condemnation from individuals, nations, the EU and major fashion brands.
Bakhodir, just one of an estimated 1-2.5 million children forced to work each year, has suffered severe injuries that have left him in a coma after being hit by a car. The child labourers are often forced to walk a dangerous route to and from the fields alongside highways.
IPS News reports that Nadejda Atayeva, from the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, said: ‘This is just one in a series of similar traffic accidents associated with the cotton harvest campaign and coercive mobilisation of school children every year.’
99% of Uzbek cotton ends up in the EU, which continues to provide the nation with preferential trade tariffs, and it is a tragedy that consumers can find themselves unwittingly supporting dangerous and abusive child labour.
Uzbekistan’s Cotton Crimes must stop. We must urge the EU to take decisive action and convince retailers to tighten up their supply chains to squeeze Uzbek cotton out. Click here to watch our “End Cotton Crimes” video. Click here to see retailer’s responses regarding their usage of Uzbek cotton. Click here to sign our petition to the EU.
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