World Bank-backed child labour in Uzbek agriculture

The Bank’s support of agriculture in Uzbekistan has landed it in hot water suggesting that it does not take seriously the social implications of such lending. Ezgulik, an Uzbek NGO, issued a report in December 2010 documenting severe flaws in the Bank's assessments in providing the second phase of a $67.9 million loan to the Uzbek government. The loan, provided through IDA, the Bank’s low-income country arm, was a renewal of funding for the agriculture sector for 2010-2015.

The report documents a number of failures in the Bank’s support, ranging from assumptions made about reforms underway in the agricultural sector to overestimates of pay being $300 per month for adult labourers rather than the $100 reported by Ezgulik. According to Ezgulik, most disturbing is the Bank’s conclusion that their social assessment did not reveal extensive use of child labour, contrary to reports by other institutions including UNICEF. Child labour in the Uzbek cotton fields has been widely documented by national and international NGOs in recent years. “[S]chool kids are working in cotton fields in hazardous conditions ... while the agro-project managers of the World Bank keep reporting success stories about the situation in the farming sector of Uzbekistan,” concludes Ezgulik.

NGO Anti-Slavery International, whose European-wide campaign Cotton Crimes seeks to end slavery in the cotton sector has also raised concern about the Bank's support of Uzbekistan. "Uzbekistan's authorities' use of coercion to force adults and children into the cotton fields during the harvest has been well-documented, including by SOAS in their recent report 'What has changed?'," says Joanna Ewart-James. "It is therefore imperative that the World Bank has effective screening policies in place to ensure that funds for rural development do not support the ongoing practice of state-sponsored forced labour."

This article was first published by the Bretton Woods Project

European Council keen to expand trade in textiles with Uzbekistan

The Council of the European Union has announced that it has agreed changes to the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Uzbekistan to extend the provisions of the PCA to the trade in textiles. This is of concern to the campaign as the proposed changes contradicts a strong and clear message to Uzbekistan that the priority must be to end the systematic use of forced child labour during the annual cotton harvest. However these changes have to be approved by the European Parliament and so this is an opportunity to call on the Parliament to block this process and at the very least, ensure that it is conditional on Uzbekistan ending this practice.

The Association for Human Rights in Central Asia has begun a petition calling for this decision to be reconsidered and for human rights concerns to be taken into account. The petition can be read and signed here. 

Petition progress

Thanks for signing the petition, we now have over 1,000 signatories and change.org, a website which aims to mobilise people to take action to support campaigns globally has also recently posted our petition on its site. We need more signatures to show the European Parliament that this is an issue of concern so please ask your friends to sign on too! 

Uzbekistan's President visits Brussels

Yesterday Uzbekistan’s President Karimov was welcomed by the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to Brussels, amid strong condemnation from NGOs on Uzbekistan’s human rights record.

The EU is keen to strengthen relations with Uzbekistan and an agreement was signed to establish an EU Delegation office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

However President Barroso did raise human rights concerns and urged the President Karimov to allow an International Labour Organization monitoring mission to the country to address child labour. Anti-Slavery has called on the Government of Uzbekistan to accept this mission but they rejected the ILO’s recommendation late last year.

Karimov's visit drew a protest outside the European Commission headquarters yesterday, where several prominent Uzbek human rights defenders spoke up about the situation in their country.
 

Has the EU invited Uzbekistan's President to Brussels?

Anti-Slavery International has received reports, including from Eurasianet.org, that Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov has been invited to Brussels to meet with the Council of the European Union at the end of this month.

The Paris-based Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (Asie Centrale), a group of emigres from Uzbekistan, distributed a press release January 10 citing "reliable sources" that Karimov's visit to Brussels is planned for January 31 - the day after his 73rd birthday.

The European Union raised concerns last year with the government about the use of state-sponsored forced child labour in the cotton industry last year. This invite would not be consistent with this message that this practice is abhorrent and should be immediately abolished, a practice which the President has the power to end.

Complaints against British traders

Complaints have been filed against two British cotton traders for contributing to forced child labour in Uzbekistan. British cotton dealers Cargill Cotton Ltd and ICT Cotton Ltd have been accused by the German-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) of breaking OECD guidelines for multinational corporations by purchasing Uzbek cotton harvested through forced child labour. Anti-Slavery International has secured media coverage in around 230 UK local news sites as well as in a number of national papers including The Guardian and The Daily Mirror.

The OECD complaints call upon the UK Government to investigate, through its OECD National Contact Point, whether the cotton dealers “have contributed substantially to maintaining the use of child and forced labour in the Uzbek cotton production”. An upheld complaint would result in considerable UK Government pressure against both British cotton trading companies to end business dealings with Uzbekistan. The OECD complaints filed in the UK are part of a pan-European campaign targeting seven cotton traders. Similar complaints were submitted simultaneously in October in Germany, France, and Switzerland.

Cotton Crimes blog

Welcome to our new Cotton Crimes campaign blog. We will be updating readers on the progress of the campaign as we seek to end the use of state-sponsored forced child labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields.

For up to three months, school children as young as nine years old are forced from their classrooms to collect up to 60 kg of cotton each day to help maintain their country’s position as the world’s third largest exporter of the crop.

Due to the lack of political will from the Government of Uzbekistan to end this practice, Anti-Slavery International has launched Cotton Crimes: European Cotton Campaign Against Child Slavery to call upon international institutions and the private sector (including retailers and cotton traders) to put pressure on the Government of Uzbekistan to end the use of forced child labour in the cotton industry.

Anti-Slavery International is working in partnership across Europe to combat child slavery in Uzbekistan. Right now the German-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights is attempting to hold those companies who profit from child slavery to account. The NGO has filed complaints against cotton traders across Europe, including two in the UK, for violating the OECD guidelines.

Anti-Slavery International is also demanding the European Union removes trade preferences for Uzbekistan. It is time the EU matches up its trade and finance policy and previous criticism of Uzbekistan’s use of forced child labour by excluding cotton from the Central Asian state from the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) list, which gives developing countries lower import tariffs to the EU. Put simply, Uzbekistan should not be financially rewarded for using child slavery.

We need you to be part of this Cotton Crimes and take action. We ask that you sign our petition to the President of the European Parliament calling for an end to trade preferences for Uzbek cotton. You can also take actions to pressure companies to implement a ban on Uzbek cotton and adopt measures to ensure Uzbek cotton does not enter their supply chain. By taking action together we can stamp out child slavery in Uzbekistan once and for all.

Keep checking in for campaign updates and more information about how you can help.