Cotton Crimes is off to Brussels!

On the 7th December 2011 we'll be descending on the European Parliament with schoolchildren from Bishop Bell School in Eastbourne to hand in our Cotton Crimes campaign petition calling on the European Union to do more to stop child slavery in Uzbekistan.

Please sign our petition here to help us reach 10,000 signatures before the big day! 


Catherine Bearder, MEP for South-East England, invited the students to Brussels after they wrote to her to express their concern about buying clothes made by children in slavery and asked her to take up the issue at the European Parliament.

Our petition is calling for the European Union to stop rewarding Uzbekistan with preferential trade tariffs until the former Soviet republic ends the practice of forcing hundreds of thousands of school children as well as adults to pick its annual cotton harvest.

You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter on the day for live updates from the students who will be lobbying MEPs about this issue ahead of a key Parliamentary vote regarding an Uzbek-EU trade deal, which could make it easier for Uzbekistan to import textiles into Europe.

Please help us put a stop to this and SIGN THE PETITION HERE.