News

Twelve major brands sign Turkmen Cotton Pledge

To coincide with the Turkmen president’s attendance at the UN General Assembly – the first time since 2015 – apparel companies and global investors have expressed disapproval regarding the nation’s use of statesponsored forced labour in Turkmenistan’s cotton sector.
As a method to remedy this, twelve apparel brands and retailers from around the world have signed the Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN) Turkmen Cotton Pledge, committing not to source cotton from Turkmenistan until forced labour has been eliminated.

French Journalist Detained In Kazakhstan While Preparing Report On 2011 Deadly Protests

Prado's interpreter, Danara Ismetova, told RFE/RL by phone that police on September 27 detained her and Prado in Aqtau, the capital of the Manghystau region, and took them to a local police station.

Turkmenistan: Bus Crash Injures Dozens of Cotton Pickers

Dozens of people have been injured in a bus accident and have been taken to the hospital, eyewitnesses reported to ATN. The crash occurred on August 31st in the eastern city of Turkmenabat. The roughly 40 people on board were kindergarten and secondary school staff, traveling to Farap district, 30 km outside of Turkmenabat, to pick cotton. Due to lack of seats some people had to stand.

Brands should boycott Turkmenistan cotton over use of forced and child labour

Anti-Slavery International is urging all brands to pledge not to knowingly source cotton from Turkmenistan due to systematic forced and child labour in the sector, writes Klara Skrivankova, UK and Europe Programme Manager

Measuring Forced Labour in an Authoritarian Context – An Evaluation of ILO Third Party Monitoring in Uzbekistan

Corruption and regimes of forced labour in Uzbekistan are closely entwined. This is exhibited most acutely in the cotton sector. Revenues from the export of cotton are hidden by the state, and rent-seeking from public officials goes hand in hand with the coerced recruitment process.

United States Maintains Strong Stand Against Forced Labor in Turkmenistan’s Cotton Production

The U.S. State Department announced today that the government of Turkmenistan remains in the lowest possible ranking, Tier 3, in the annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. Countries that would fall into the worst category (Tier 3), are not committed to meeting the minimum standards for the elimination of severe forms of trafficking in persons.

U.S. Decision Fails Forced Labor Victims in Uzbekistan.

Washington, DC – Today the U.S. government upgraded the Uzbek government’s ranking in its 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report to the Tier 2 Watch List, a category denoting nations that deserve special scrutiny, despite acknowledging that “government-compelled forced labor remained during the 2017 cotton harvest.” The Cotton Campaign believes that the 2017 harvest should have been the primary basis of the determination and that given the massive scale of the forced labor in last year’s harvest, the decision does not sufficiently reflect these most recent facts on the ground. Moreover, the Cotton Campaign is concerned that the decision to upgrade Uzbekistan, may prematurely diminish the government’s incentive to translate its recent commitments into action to end systematic forced labor.

Invisible and exploited in Kazakhstan: New Report Sheds Light on the Plight of Kyrgyz Migrant Workers and Their Family Members

Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children from Kyrgyzstan and neighbouring Central Asian states are forced to migrate to Kazakhstan in search of work. These individuals often fall victim to forced labour, unsafe and unsanitary working conditions, violations of the rights to maternity and childhood, as well as arbitrary arrests and deportations. FIDH and its partners have documented the plight of Kyrgyz migrants, in a report released today.

Uzbek Farmer: I would be glad to refuse to grow cocoons

Uzbekistan, a leading producer of silk cocoons, relies on forced labor for their production, which violates the rights of farmers and public-sector workers and exploits the vulnerability of the rural poor. Uzbek farmers must produce silk cocoons under coercion to fulfill government quotas and they must sell their cocoons to the government at the official procurement price, leaving them little or no profit, and in many cases in debt

Uzbek Farmer: “I will definitely be bankrupt this year”

A monitor from Uzbek-German Forum interviewed a farmer from the Khorezm region who described his experience with the command system of management in the Uzbekistan’s agriculture sector. Farmers do not have the freedom to choose what crops to grow; the state sets the prices and can arbitrarily and punitively “redistribute” the land of the farm at any time, despite an existing lease, leaving farmers in a particularly vulnerable situation.