6 Feb in 11:00 Emerging Europe
A combination of government-led reform, international pressure, higher wages, and the return of migrant workers from abroad has all-but eradicated the use of child and forced labour in the Uzbek cotton harvest. As Emerging Europe
reports, although some local vestiges still remain, the systematic and systemic use of child and forced labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry has come to an end, according to a new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The report, compiled for the World Bank, shows that one in eight people of working age in Uzbekistan participated in the 2020 cotton harvest, which makes it the world’s largest recruitment effort. Sixty-five per cent of pickers were women, and the vast majority were from rural areas.
“When I was a child, we unfortunately missed a lot of school classes because of the cotton harvest,” says Dilshoda Shodmonova from Chircik, near the capital Tashkent. “Today, thanks to the reforms, my own daughter can go to school uninterrupted and get her education. This encourages me to continue my work as a labour rights activist.”
According to the ILO, the country is making significant progress on fundamental labour rights in the cotton fields. More than 96 per cent of workers in the 2020 cotton harvest worked freely and the systematic recruitment of students, teachers, doctors and nurses has completely stopped.
In 2020, the share of cotton pickers that experienced coercion was 33 per cent lower than in 2019. However, there were still cases at the local level of people being threatened with loss of privileges or rights if they declined an invitation to pick cotton.