Better national occupational safety and health policies, institutional and regulatory frameworks, that are also integrated into crisis response, are needed, says the International Labour Organization.
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The ITUC is setting out five key demands from working people to build recovery and resilience, putting people and the environment at the centre of the new social contract. Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, outlined the demands during the World Economic Forum, with an ITUC session on the subject taking place at the World Social Forum on the 26 January and a detailed blog on the issues: “The choices made by world leaders and by business in 2021 will either heed the call of workers and civil society to reform the economic model and help create a just and sustainable future or maintain business as usual and see a model of corporate greed entrench inequality, exclusion and despair perpetuating instability for our communities and our planet.”
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The EU has accepted the Republic of Uzbekistan as the 9th beneficiary country of the special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance (GSP+) under the unilateral Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP). The EU will start applying preferential tariffs for products imported from Uzbekistan under this arrangement from 10 April 2021.
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Amsterdam/Vienna, 23 March 2021. Two Turkmen non-governmental organizations, turkmen.news and the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, have today published their joint Review of the Use of Forced Labor in Turkmenistan During the 2020 Cotton Harves. The report is based on monitoring by the NGOs’ staff in four of the five regions of Turkmenistan — Ahal, Dashoguz, Lebap, and Mary.
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According to the state register of NGOs, 9,200 non-governmental organizations, national and regional, are registered and operating in Uzbekistan today. Meanwhile, the vast majority of these organizations are branches of large quasi-governmental NGOs (GONGOs) created by the state. Registration of independent NGOs is in fact a cumbersome, painful process and, despite criticism by international human rights defenders, Uzbekistan is in no hurry to change the rules to make it easier for civil society to formally register as independent organizations.
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Despite significant progress on the eradication of forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector, new challenges have come to light since the privatization process began. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland have now been transferred to private operators (clusters) leaving many farming families without work and in poverty. Because only one cluster operates per district, farmers who have retained their land are now trapped in contracts to deliver cotton to the cluster in their district, leaving them without the power to negotiate favorable terms. Instead of the state, de facto private monopolies have emerged that control entire districts.
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Global fashion brands have been yet again pressed to avoid cotton from Turkmenistan after a new investigation emerged last week revealing how last year’s harvest was once more mired in forced labour, corruption and persecution of activists, Ecotextile News reported.
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On March 19, 2021, over 200 employees of Indorama Agro in the Syrdarya region of Uzbekistan held a meeting to establish the independent trade union, “Xalq Birligi” (People’s Unity), the first of its kind in the country. The documents required for formal registration of the union will be filed with the Ministry of Justice in the coming days. Xalq Birligi will be open to any employees of Indorama Agro who wish to join.
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The first independent and democratic trade union organization has been formed in Uzbekistan. On March 19, 2021, 335 workers from the Indorama cotton plantations founded “Xalq Birligi” (Peoples’ Unity) in response to low wages and deteriorating working conditions in the transnational company, Indorama.
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