Child labour in Uzbekistan not over, says HRW, slamming World Bank, ILO

Child labour in Uzbekistan not over, says HRW, slamming World Bank, ILO
Experts insist child labour is now very infrequent amid Uzbekistan's cotton harvesting, but HRW said it discovered the practice in five places. / Shuhrataxmedov.
By bne IntelliNews June 28, 2017

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on June 27 accused the World Bank and International Labour Organisation (ILO) of deliberately looking past the continued use of child and forced labour in Uzbekistan. A new HRW study, based on two years of field work and leaked government documents, has revealed that Uzbek children were being pushed to pick cotton as late as last autumn, it said in a statement.

HRW’s claims – also made after hundreds of interviews conducted by the organisation and the Uzbek-German Forum – are in stark contrast with conclusions drawn by the ILO about last year's cotton harvesting season in Uzbekistan. The ILO, a UN body, reported in February that organised child labour was now regarded as socially unacceptable in Uzbekistan and that the Soviet-era practice had been phased out. The ILO opinion featured in a World Bank statement released in the same month. 

The World Bank has provided continuous support for Uzbek agricultural projects despite being urged by rights groups to suspend its loans. The HRW study said that it remains necessary for the international financial institution to suspend all agricultural sector loans to Uzbekistan. The terms of its latest $500mn loan have been violated by the failure to bring forced labour in the Central Asian country to an end, it concluded.

The European Parliament approved a textiles trade deal with Uzbekistan last December, ending a five-year stalemate after commending the country for its efforts to eradicate child labour. The deal overlapped with the coming to power of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev following the death of Islam Karimov, who had ruled for 27 years, in September.

HRW’s statement accuses the World Bank of turning a blind eye to the continued practice of child labour as it seeks to maintain its improved institutional relations with the Uzbek regime. “The World Bank needs to make sure that it is making decisions based on what is happening on the ground and not on the basis of an improved relationship that it has with the Uzbek government,” senior Human Rights Watch researcher Jessica Evans said.

The ILO’s monitoring work in Uzbekistan had been compromised because it was forced to include government officials, government-affiliated unions and other groups on its monitoring teams, HRW said. Researchers at HRW also highlighted the ILO’s admission that workers interviewed by its own monitors in the cotton fields seemed to have been coached. 

While the report raises questions about the World Bank’s role in the controversy, it is also damaging to the image of Mirziyoyev, who is widely seen as a reformer.

Throughout the nine months that have passed in the ex-Soviet country under Mirziyoyev, multiple political prisoners jailed during Karimov’s rule have been released. He has also followed up on a number of his promises to improve the business climate for small business in the country. However, with other reform pledges, such as the planned introduction of a floating exchange rate regime still unfulfilled, the HRW report shines a light on Mirziyoyev’s willingness to evade some commitments.

Nevertheless, the study recognises that the government, under international pressure, has curtailed child labour in some parts of the country. But at least five places have continued with the use of school children as young as 10, it said.

In a response published by the Financial Times on June 27, the World Bank said it did not condone “forced labour in any form and takes seriously reports of incidents in the cotton sector of Uzbekistan”. 

The newspaper also reported Beate Andrees, a spokeswoman for the ILO, as acknowledging that its monitoring in Uzbekistan was far from perfect. But she added: “We do see positive change. That’s why we remain engaged.”

Uzbekistan stands as the fifth largest cotton producer in the world and the cotton industry earns the Uzbek government $1bn a year. The government-run cotton sector relies on over 3mn participants in the cotton harvest made up of students, public sector workers and state benefits-reliant individuals, all of whom work under the threat of losing their job, university position or welfare.  

Uzbek cotton is largely exported to China and Bangladesh where it enters the textile manufacturing industry very often producing clothes for the West. Currently, around 200 global apparel brands are committed to a compact not to use Uzbek cotton in their supply chains. The government has made the development of the textile industry one of its priorities. It has pledged to invest $1bn by 2019 to support 70 textile projects.

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