A rural development program has been in effect in Turkmenistan since 2007. The state media have given it a variety of names over the past 12 years: “the regional development program,” “the village reform program” and simply “the reform program.” It’s not in the public domain but is often referred to in the media and appears extremely significant from the volume of investment alone.
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The production and harvesting of cotton in Turkmenistan remains heavily reliant on a system of forced labor despite the use of mechanical cotton harvesters on some farms and attempts by local authorities to prevent the use of child labor in the cotton fields. Farmers put the problem down to the rigidly centralized agricultural system. It’s the government that tells the farmers what to grow; it’s the government that provides seeds, fertilizers and other supplies. The state even sets dates for the start and finish of the cotton harvest, instead of allowing farmers to decide for themselves when the crop is actually ready.
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Crisis in Turkmenistan. In 2018 citizens of one of the world’s richest countries stand in queues for basic foodstuffs: bread, flour, eggs, chicken legs, cotton seed oil and sugar. At the same time Turkmenistan possesses large oil and gas reserves. How did the Turkmens end up on the edge of humanitarian catastrophe?
24-year-old Sohibjon Mutalibov, an employee of Ammofos-Maxam, the largest producer of mineral fertilizers in Uzbekistan, was forcibly sent to pick cotton in the Jizzakh region on September 26, 2018. Two days later, he died following a fight with a local resident who fractured his skull. Sohibjon lay in a coma for seven days and died without regaining consciousness in hospital in the Dustlik district of the Jizzakh region. Sohibjon was one of the hundreds of thousands of employees of enterprises that were forcibly sent to pick cotton in the fall of 2018 under the threat of dismissal.
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International Labor Organization’s Director-General Guy Ryder recently visited Uzbekistan, meeting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and other high level officials to discuss how this country is reforming to end forced labor, specifically in its cotton fields. VOA talked to Ryder in Tashkent.
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International Labor Organization’s Director-General Guy Ryder recently visited Uzbekistan, meeting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and other high level officials to discuss how this country is reforming to end forced labor, specifically in its cotton fields. VOA talked to Ryder in Tashkent.
Uzbekistan’s 2018 cotton harvest, which concluded in all regions of the country the first week of December, showcased the enormous challenges in uprooting the country’s deeply entrenched forced labor system. Driven by a commitment to reform at the highest levels of the government, there is a significant transition underway, which is reflected in some encouraging signs of progress. But despite serious efforts by the central government to curtail forced labor for some citizens, key root causes remained in place, driving officials at both the local and national level to force citizens into the fields again.
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INTERVIEW WITH ANDRE MROST.
Andre Mrost has a PhD in physical geography and studied environmental impact of large irrigation projects, including Uzbekistan within the UNEP – Institute of Deserts study of the Aral Sea drying. He is also an expert in the international labour relations with 18 year experience of working for the global trade unions. Later he was a researcher on corporate social responsibility, CSR, and is a certified auditor on SA 8000 social standard. Andre took part in training child and forced labour monitors of the Uzbek German Forum, was detained by the Uzbek security in Tashkent in times of the President Karimov and expelled from Uzbekistan