News

What Is the Reason for the Continued Practice of Forced Cotton Picking in Uzbekistan?

A content of the document suggests that a super-centralized management system based on command-and-control methods, forcing farmers to grow and harvest cotton, as well as compulsory quotas for raw cotton delivery to the state, will continue. The issued decree and its annexes – the Strategy for the Development of Agriculture and the Roadmap for its implementation – do not validate the government’s serious intention to reform the industry.

Cotton and Corporate Responsibility: Fighting Forced Labor in Xinjiang and Uzbekistan

There are considerable differences with regard to forced labor in Uzbekistan and Xinjiang, but there is an underlying corporate responsibility to not engage in human rights abuses.

Uzbekistan: Efforts Underway to End Forced Labor

The Cotton Campaign met with the government of Uzbekistan in Washington last week to discuss reform efforts to end forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest, which is currently underway. The Uzbek delegation, headed by Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade Sardor Umurzakov, presented its Roadmap to combat forced labor, which seeks to address the key concerns raised by the Cotton Campaign in its dialogue with the government.

For the sake of workers, Uzbekistan is privatising its cotton industry

Under the blazing sun in a cloudless blue sky, green foliage droops with unfurling white cotton bolls. In the Fergana Valley in the heart of Central Asia, in the shadow of snow-dusted mountains, the cotton is ripe for picking. If the Uzbek authorities have their way, it will become t-shirts and skirts, to be sold around the world. Uzbekistan, already the world’s seventh-biggest producer of cotton, wants to become a force in the garment industry, too, on a par with the likes of Bangladesh, China and Vietnam.

Uzbekistan: Amidst reform effort, journalists and activists face criminal charges, arbitrary detention, forced psychiatric treatment

The Cotton Campaign calls on the Uzbek government to drop criminal charges against Mahmud Rajab, a poet, journalist, and human rights defender, whose trial on contraband charges is set to begin Thursday. The government should also stop interfering with independent reporting on human rights issues, including forced labor.

Government still restricting free reporting

In spite its rhetoric on reform, Uzbekistan is failing to overcome its habit of resorting to authoritarian practices when silencing critics. Highly secretive closed-door trials remain a familiar feature, and relatives of defendants can still expect to be threatened by security services operatives.

Malokhat Eshankulova again restricted to travel abroad and in criminal proceedings

Malokhat Eshankulova, an independent journalist from Uzbekistan, was unable to fly to Warsaw, where the OSCE Human Rights Conference began today.

Cotton Campaign Roadmap of Reforms for Uzbekistan: END SYSTEMIC FORCED LABOR, ENACT STRUCTURAL REFORMS, AND EMPOWER CIVIL SOCIETY

This Roadmap sets forth a comprehensive vision to end forced labor in the cotton industry and ensure that reforms are fundamental and sustainable. Its purpose is to support the historic process of reform that is underway but incomplete to eliminate and prevent forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector.

In Uzbekistan, women’s rights are changing - but not fast enough

In Tashkent, women facing violence at home have nowhere to go. No one has heard of shelters, and if a woman has no friends or relatives, the situation becomes impossible: no hotel will take a locally registered single woman, on suspicion of prostitution. It’s pointless contacting the police, even in the most desperate circumstances. In a recent case, police refused to accept a statement by a 14-year old girl that she had been raped, because she was “of the age of consent and had no obvious signs of injury”.

Uzbek Human Rights Defender Charged with Slander and Defamation after Investigating Confiscation of Private Property

A criminal case has been brought against Malokhat Eshonkulova, an independent Tashkent-based human rights defender, by the investigative department of the Jizzakh regional police based on a statement by Alisher Abduganiyev, the hokim of the Zaamin district.