{"id":10148,"date":"2018-11-10T15:53:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-10T13:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=10148"},"modified":"2018-11-10T15:56:38","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T13:56:38","slug":"we-cant-refuse-to-pick-cotton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2018\/11\/we-cant-refuse-to-pick-cotton\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe Can\u2019t Refuse to Pick Cotton\u201d Forced and Child Labor in Uzbekistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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A woman picks cotton during the 2015 cotton harvest, which runs from early September to late October or early November annually.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a9 2015 Simon Buxton\/Anti-Slavery International<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Cotton is mandatory for everyone. The government gave the orders [to pick] and you will not go against those orders\u2026. If I refuse, they will fire me\u2026. We would lose the bread we eat<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

\u2212Uzbek schoolteacher, October 2015, Turtkul, Karakalpakstan<\/p>\n

For several weeks in the fall of 2015, government officials forced Firuza,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>a 47-year-old grandmother, to harvest cotton in Turtkul, a district in\u00a0<\/span>Uzbekistan\u2019s most western region, the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan<\/span>. The local neighborhood council, the\u00a0<\/span>mahalla\u00a0<\/em>committee, had threatened to withhold child welfare benefits for her grandson if she did not go to the fields to harvest cotton. These same officials forced another woman, Gulnora, to harvest cotton for the same length of time. Although Gulnora worked, the government refused to pay her child welfare benefits, promising to consider reinstating them if she worked in the fields the next spring. The Uzbek government forces enormous numbers of people to harvest cotton every year through this kind of coercion.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The World Bank is funding half a billion dollars in agricultural projects linked to forced and child labor in Uzbekistan. Under the loan agreements, the Uzbek government is required to comply with laws prohibiting forced and child labor, and the World Bank can suspend the loans if there is credible evidence of violations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

The government\u2019s abusive practices are not confined to adults. During the 2016 harvest the government forced young children to work in the cotton fields. In Ellikkala, a district neighboring Turtkul,\u00a0officials from at least two schools ordered 13 and 14-year-old children to pick cotton after school. The Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights saw children working in one of the cotton fields, and a teacher ordering the children to hide. The World Bank has funded an irrigation project in these districts on the condition that the Uzbek government comply with laws prohibiting forced and child labor. Despite this agreement, the Uzbek government has continued to force people, including children, to work within the project area.<\/p>\n

Withholding child benefits and other welfare payments is just one of the penalties the government has used to force people to work. The government has threatened to fire people, especially public sector employees who are among the lowest paid in the country. Students who refused to work faced the threat of expulsion, academic penalties, and other consequences. People living in poverty are particularly susceptible to forced labor, as they are unable to risk losing their jobs or welfare benefits by refusing to work and cannot afford to pay people to work in their place.<\/p>\n

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\"World<\/a><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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Based on interviews with victims of forced labor in September to November 2015, April to June and September to November 2016, and early 2017, leaked government documents, and statements by government officials, this report details how the Uzbek government forced students, teachers, medical workers, other government employees, and private-sector employees to harvest cotton in 2015 and 2016, as well as prepare the cotton fields in the spring of 2016. The report documents forced adult and child labor in one World Bank project area and demonstrates that it is highly likely that the Bank\u2019s other agriculture projects in Uzbekistan are linked to ongoing forced labor in light of the systemic nature of the abuses. The report also finds that there is a significant risk of child labor in other Bank agricultural projects in the country.<\/p>\n

Uzbekistan is the fifth largest cotton producer in the world. It exports about 60 percent of its raw cotton to China, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Iran. Uzbekistan\u2019s cotton industry generates over US$1 billion in revenue, or about a quarter of the country\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP), from one million tons of cotton fiber annually. These funds go into an opaque extra-budgetary account, the\u00a0Selkhozfond<\/i>, housed in the Ministry of Finance, that escapes public scrutiny and is controlled by high-level officials.<\/p>\n

Campaigns by a number of groups against forced and child labor in Uzbekistan\u2019s cotton sector have resulted in boycotts of Uzbek cotton. For example, 274 c0mpanies have pledged not to knowingly source cotton from Uzbekistan because of forced and child labor in the sector. Despite this, the World Bank remains active in the country\u2019s agriculture sector providing a total of $518.75 million in loans to the government for projects in this sector in 2015 and 2016.<\/p>\n

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\"Map<\/a><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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In Turtkul, Beruni, and Ellikkala districts in Karakalpakstan, the World Bank has worked with the Uzbek government since April 2015 under a $337.43 million irrigation project. Cotton is grown on more than 50 percent of the arable land within this project area. The World Bank secured a commitment from the Uzbek government to comply with national and international forced and child labor laws in the project area and agreed that the loan could be suspended if there was credible evidence of violations.<\/p>\n

Since the World Bank approved this project in 2014, the Uzbek government has continued to force people, sometimes children, to work in the cotton sector in Turtkul, Beruni, and Ellikkala, including within the Bank\u2019s project area. Independent groups, including the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights, submitted evidence of forced and child labor to the World Bank during and following the 2015 harvest, which runs from early September until early to mid-November annually. Instead of suspending its loan to the government, in line with the 2014 agreement between the two parties, the World Bank increased its investments in Uzbekistan\u2019s agriculture industry through its private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC).<\/p>\n

Shortly after the 2015 cotton harvest, the IFC invested in a government joint venture with a subsidiary of Indonesia\u2019s Indorama Corporation, Indorama Kokand Textile, a leading cotton yarn producer in Uzbekistan. In December 2015 the\u00a0IFC agreed to loan Indorama $40 million to expand its textile plant, which uses solely Uzbek cotton. Given the scale of forced labor in Uzbekistan and its systemic nature, it is highly unlikely that a company could source any significant quantity of cotton from Uzbekistan at present that has not been harvested, at least in part, by forced laborers. There is also a significant risk of child labor.<\/p>\n

According to the IFC, Indorama tracks its purchases from sites where cotton is processed to mitigate the risk of child and forced labor. Together with the IFC, Indorama has developed a system for rating the risk level of districts in which gins are located. But this system is deeply inadequate. The IFC\u2019s Environmental and Social Performance Standards, which are designed to prevent the IFC from investing in projects that harm people or the environment, require clients to identify risks of, monitor for, and remedy forced and child labor in their supply chains. The Performance Standards provide that where remedy is not possible, clients must shift the project\u2019s primary supply chain over time to suppliers that can demonstrate that they do not employ forced and child labor.<\/p>\n

The World Bank is also heavily invested in the country\u2019s education sector, where forced and child labor have undermined access to education, and its quality, because teachers, and students, including children, have had to leave school for up to several months to work in cotton fields. Through direct funding and the Global Partnership for Education, a multistakeholder funding platform, the World Bank provides almost $100 million in financing for education projects in Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n

The government has greatly reduced the number of children it forces to work since 2013, primarily by ordering government officials down the line of command to mobilize adults rather than children. However, Human Rights Watch and the Uzbek-German Forum documented more cases of state-organized child labor through schools mobilizing children in 2016 than in the previous year. For example, in addition to child labor in Karakalpakstan described above, in 2016 children and teachers in two districts in Kashkadarya and a school employee in rural Fergana told Human Rights Watch and the Uzbek-German Forum that local officials required schools to mobilize children as young as 10 or 11 years old to pick cotton and suspended classes during this period. They noted that in several districts this was worse than 2015, when children received some classes prior to being sent to pick cotton.<\/p>\n

The World Bank\u2019s Unsuccessful \u201cMitigation\u201d of Forced Labor<\/h2>\n
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\"Women<\/a><\/p>\n

Women carrying bags of cotton to be weighed and loaded onto a truck in Jizzakh region during the 2016 cotton harvest. The government typically requires people to meet a daily quota of cotton picked, from which the costs of food and transport are deducted. If they do not meet the quota, they can go into debt.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>
\u00a9 2016 UGF<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The World Bank\u00a0has a long history of investing\u00a0in Uzbekistan\u2019s agriculture sector, but a poor record\u00a0of\u00a0addressing\u00a0forced and child\u00a0labor in\u00a0the\u00a0projects it funds.\u00a0The Bank only acknowledged this problem after\u00a0forced\u00a0laborers filed a complaint with the World Bank\u2019s independent accountability mechanism, the Inspection Panel, in 2013.Thatcomplaint alleged that a Bank agriculture project was contributing to the perpetuation of\u00a0forced and child labor in Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n

In response,\u00a0the\u00a0World\u00a0Bank introduced\u00a0several measures to mitigate the risk of these\u00a0labor\u00a0abuses being linked to existing and proposed\u00a0Bank projects.\u00a0It required\u00a0the government to comply with national and international laws on\u00a0forced and child labor.\u00a0It also\u00a0committed\u00a0to\u00a0establish\u00a0thirdparty monitoring of labor practices in the\u00a0Bank\u2019s project areas and\u00a0to implement\u00a0a grievance mechanism\u00a0through which victims of forced labor would be able to complain and receive some redress.\u00a0These mitigation measures\u00a0do\u00a0not adequately address\u00a0government-organized, systematic\u00a0forced labor in Uzbekistan\u2019s cotton sector.\u00a0Ultimately, the\u00a0Bank found\u00a0that it could not implement some of its commitments, so it\u00a0settled for weaker measures.<\/p>\n

For example, the World Bank\u00a0contracted\u00a0the\u00a0International\u00a0Labour\u00a0Organization (ILO), a tripartite UN agency made up of governments, employer organizations, and worker representatives,\u00a0to monitor forced and child labor in partnership with the Uzbek government, instead of\u00a0independently\u00a0monitoring\u00a0the\u00a0government\u2019s practices.\u00a0The ILO has an important role to play in\u00a0promoting fundamental labor rights in Uzbekistan. However,\u00a0itallowed\u00a0the\u00a0involvement of\u00a0government and government-aligned\u00a0organizations\u00a0in the monitoring effort.\u00a0The lack of independence of labor unions in Uzbekistan further compromises the ILO\u2019s work in Uzbekistan.\u00a0Under this structure,\u00a0in reality,\u00a0the government that mandates forced labor and utilizes child labor is allowed to monitor itself.\u00a0While the World Bank has acknowledged these limitations privately,\u00a0publicly\u00a0it continues to refer to the ILO as undertaking \u201cindependent monitoring.\u201d<\/p>\n

The credibility of the ILO\u2019s\u00a0findings\u00a0has been further undermined\u00a0by\u00a0evidence that\u00a0the government\u00a0coached ILO\u00a0interviewees. The ILO\u00a0reported that\u00a0\u201cMany interviewees appeared to have been briefed in advance.\u201d Numerous people told Human Rights Watch and the Uzbek-German Forum that government officials or their supervisors told\u00a0people\u00a0to say they were local and unemployed, picking cotton voluntarily,\u00a0or that they worked as cleaners or guards in their schools and hospitals instead of teachers and medical staff. If the monitors already knew that they were teachers, then they were to say that they voluntarily picked cotton after they had finished teaching classes.<\/p>\n

There is no proper grievance mechanism either.\u00a0Instead\u00a0of an independent mechanism, the\u00a0Ministry of Labor\u00a0and a government-controlled trade union federation are responsible for obtaining feedback from workers, undermining its credibility among workers.\u00a0This\u00a0system has\u00a0resulted in\u00a0reprisals against complainants and a general dismissal of their concerns, both of which have\u00a0compounded the\u00a0lack of trust\u00a0in the mechanism.<\/p>\n

The World Bank has not recognized that Uzbekistan has breached its loan agreements with the Bank in continuing to force adults and some children to work in its project area, despite receiving evidence from independent groups including Human Rights Watch and the Uzbek-German Forum of these abuses. The ILO similarly reported to the World Bank that it observed indicators of forced labor in the country in 2015 and that there were ongoing risks of forced labor in 2016 including in Bank project areas.<\/p>\n

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\"Housing<\/a><\/p>\n

Housing provided for people working in the cotton fields during the 2016 harvest. Workers stay overnight for between a few weeks and two months, depending on their employers\u2019 directions. Their employers are acting on orders from the government. \u00a9 2016 UGF<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Instead of suspending key loans to Uzbekistan, the World Bank has lauded the government for its efforts, saying, \u201cThe government is taking actions, albeit in a very incremental and cautious manner, that reflect a genuine commitment to abide by its national laws and international commitments.\u201d Bank staff have pointed to legal changes, the government\u2019s cooperation with the ILO, increased training on forced and child labor, the promise of mechanization, the government\u2019s commitment to reduce the land on which it requires farmers to grow cotton, and reports that at least one government official was dismissed for violating forced and\/or child labor laws in November 2016. The Bank also noted that, according to the ILO, the number of people that refused to work in the cotton harvest doubled from 2014 to 2015. While these are notable developments, none of these steps directly addressed the fact that forced and child labor continue to be linked to Bank-supported projects in violation of the Bank\u2019s agreements with the Uzbek government.<\/p>\n

Threats and Reprisals Against Human Rights Defenders<\/h2>\n

The Uzbek-German Forum\u2019s monitors, as well as other people conducting human rights and labor rights monitoring work, faced constant risk of harassment and persecution in 2015 and 2016. In several regions, local authorities, including police, prosecutors, and representatives of\u00a0mahalla<\/i>\u00a0committees, called in monitors for questioning, accused them of being involved in illegal or \u201cbad\u201d activities, threatened them with charges, loss of jobs, or other penalties, and in some cases confiscated their research materials. Local police and central government officials have also arbitrarily prevented monitors from traveling in connection with their human rights work.<\/p>\n

In 2015 this harassment reached unprecedented levels as the government used arbitrary arrest, threats, degrading ill-treatment, and other repressive means to undermine the ability of monitors to conduct research and provide information to the ILO and other international institutions. One monitor, Dmitry Tikhonov, had to flee the country and another, Uktam Pardaev, was imprisoned for two months and released on a suspended sentence. Police told Pardaev that he is subject to travel restrictions and a curfew, although these are not stipulated in the sentence, and have surveilled and intimidated his relatives and friends. He risks going to prison if found to violate conditions of release, which he believes could be used to retaliate against him for speaking out about human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

In 2016 only one Uzbek-German Forum monitor, Elena Urlaeva, continued to work openly, and she was subjected to surveillance, harassment, arbitrary detentions and other abuses. On March 1, 2017, police again detained Urlaeva.\u00a0After reportedly insulting and assaulting her, police sent Urlaeva to a psychiatric hospital for forced treatment. The hospital released her on March 23. Urlaeva said she believes authorities detained her to prevent her from meeting with representatives of the World Bank and the ILO.\u00a0In Karakalpakstan, where the World Bank irrigation project is being implemented, authorities questioned and intimidated another Uzbek-German Forum monitor, who did not work openly, and amember of his family, suspecting him of monitoring. Security forces also arrested an independent monitor in this area and briefly detained him.<\/p>\n

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has raised concerns about forced labor and the treatment of individuals attempting to monitor labor practices in Uzbekistan. Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly recommended that the Bank include a covenant in loan and financing agreements explicitly allowing independent civil society and journalists unfettered access to monitor forced and child labor, along with other human rights abuses within the Bank\u2019s project areas and to prohibit reprisals against monitors, those that speak to them, or people that lodge complaints. The World Bank refused.<\/p>\n

In 2015 and 2016 the World Bank\u00a0said that it spoke\u00a0with\u00a0the Uzbek government about alleged reprisals.\u00a0Nonetheless, reprisals\u00a0continued\u00a0and the Bank has not escalated its response.<\/p>\n

The Way Forward for the Government of Uzbekistan<\/h2>\n

Uzbekistan\u2019s\u00a0former\u00a0authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, whose death was\u00a0reported\u00a0on September 2, 2016, left\u00a0a legacy of repression\u00a0following his 26-year rule. The country\u2019s new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, promised increased accountability and acknowledged the lack of reform in key aspects of Uzbekistan\u2019s society, including the economy and the criminal justice system. Despite these statements and the release of several political prisoners, Uzbekistan\u2019s rights record remains atrocious.\u00a0This leadership change provides\u00a0a good\u00a0moment for concerned governments and international financial institutions to press for comprehensive reforms to dismantle Uzbekistan\u2019s forced labor system and provide accountability for past abuses.<\/p>\n

Reform of the cotton sector, with its rampant corruption and abusive labor practices,\u00a0would be a significant step in realizing\u00a0Mirziyoyev\u2019s\u00a0promise of accountability. However,\u00a0Mirziyoyev\u2019s\u00a0previous positions\u00a0raise concerns about his credibility. As prime minister from 2003 to 2016\u00a0he\u00a0oversaw\u00a0the cotton production system,\u00a0and as\u00a0the\u00a0previous\u00a0governor of Jizzakh\u00a0and\u00a0Samarkand,\u00a0he was in charge of\u00a0two\u00a0cotton-producing regions.\u00a0The 2016 harvest, when Mirziyoyev was acting president\u00a0and retained control over cotton production,\u00a0continued to be defined by mass\u00a0involuntary\u00a0mobilization of workers\u00a0under threat of penalty.<\/p>\n

As this report outlines, the government\u00a0can\u00a0implement immediate reforms\u00a0to\u00a0show\u00a0a real commitment to ending forced labor, including by\u00a0significantly curtailing\u00a0forced labor\u00a0and eliminating\u00a0child labor\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0cotton sector, as well as\u00a0implementing\u00a0broader\u00a0reforms in the agricultural sector to\u00a0address the root causes of forced labor.\u00a0Basic steps would includeenforcing\u00a0laws that prohibit the use of forced and child labor,\u00a0instructing\u00a0government officials\u00a0to stop coercing\u00a0people\u00a0to work,\u00a0and\u00a0allowing\u00a0independent journalists and human rights defenders to\u00a0freely monitor the cotton sector without fear of reprisals.<\/p>\n

The Way Forward for the World Bank, International Finance Corporation<\/h2>\n

The World Bank\u00a0should suspend disbursements in all agriculture\u00a0and irrigation\u00a0financing\u00a0in\u00a0Uzbekistan\u00a0until the government\u00a0fulfills\u00a0its commitments\u00a0under\u00a0World Bank agreements\u00a0not to utilize forced or child labor\u00a0in\u00a0areas where there are\u00a0Bank-supported\u00a0projects. The IFC should\u00a0similarly suspend disbursements to\u00a0investments\u00a0in Uzbekistan\u2019s cotton industry\u00a0until\u00a0its borrowers\u00a0can show that\u00a0they\u00a0do not source cotton from fields\u00a0taintedbyforced or child labor.<\/p>\n

In addition, the World Bank and the IFC should take all necessary measures to prevent reprisals\u00a0against monitors\u00a0who document and report on labor conditions\u00a0or other\u00a0human rights issues linked, directly or indirectly, to their projects\u00a0in Uzbekistan.\u00a0The institutionsshould closely monitor for reprisals and, should they occur, respond promptly, publicly, and vigorously, including by pressing\u00a0the\u00a0government to investigate and hold to account anyone who uses force\u00a0or threatens persons reporting human rights concerns. They should also independently investigate alleged violations and\u00a0work to remedy\u00a0harms suffered from reprisals.<\/p>\n

In addition, the\u00a0World Bank and IFC\u00a0should\u00a0publicly and regularly report on reprisals linked in any way to their investments, as well as the actions they took to respond.\u00a0The\u00a0Bank\u00a0should amend its project agreements in Uzbekistan to require the government to allow independent journalists, human rights defenders, and other individuals and organizations access to monitor and report\u00a0on\u00a0forced and child labor, along with other human rights abuses in all World Bank Group project areas. The agreements should also require the government\u00a0to ensure that no one faces reprisals for monitoring human rights violations in\u00a0project\u00a0areas, bringing complaints, or engaging with monitors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Download the full REPORT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forced and Child Labor Linked to World Bank Group Investments in Uzbekistan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":10149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[797,51,85,43,178],"tags":[153,151],"class_list":["post-10148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-asia","category-child-rights","category-human-rights","category-human-rights-online-library","category-labor_rights","tag-child-labour","tag-forced-labour","country-asia","Documents-conventions"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10148"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10154,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10148\/revisions\/10154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}