The systemic and widespread use of forced labour in Turkmenistan’s cotton harvest deteriorated last year.

That's according to an annual review prepared by media-outlet-in-exile Turkmen.news, the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR), Progres Foundation and the Cotton Campaign.

The report is the culmination of five months of work during which human rights activists analysed confidential information from field observers, interviews were covertly conducted with farmers forced to meet impossible harvest quotas and hundreds of testimonies were given by public sector workers made to pick cotton, Turkmen.news said. “Some of the information is supported by photographs and videos taken at great risk,” added the publication.

The worsened situation encountered last year followed some positive developments in 2024, including the tightly controlled Central Asian country's cooperation with the International Labor Organization (ILO), the news platform also said.

The review recaps on how the heavily authoritarian government in Turkmenistan “is behind the push to send tens of thousands of public sector workers to the fields. Schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and many other government institutions have a comprehensive system of penalties for refusals to pick cotton or a refusal to pay hired pickers: from reprimands and creating unbearable working conditions to wage reductions and termination of contracts”.

TIHR observers and Turkmen.news said that they collected data from all five velayats (administrative divisions) where cotton crops are grown.

Turkmen.news recapped on how, in 2024, Turkmenistan and the ILO adopted a road map to eradicate forced labour.

“After this, in certain regions and in specific government institutions, workers were no longer required to pick cotton. In 2025, the country has rolled back even this little progress,” it reported.

The review describes how cotton production is unprofitable for Turkemn farmers, given low-quality seeds and fertilisers, a chronic shortage of irrigation water and agricultural machinery handed down by the state and officials’ insistence on unrealistic harvest targets.

Conclusions of the compiled report include:

• In all regions, teachers, doctors, technical staff, cultural workers, housing and communal services workers and other civil servants are forced to pick cotton or are forced to pay out of their own pocket for hired pickers as officials impose a "pick or pay" rule.
• Harsh responses to failures to meet the cotton picking quota, averaging 45-50 kilograms per day, included punishments meted out to conscripted soldiers who were also sent to gather the harvest. Punishments included beatings, deprivation of showers and forced exercise.
• Funds are extorted from public sector employees sent to pick cotton. The amounts demanded were on average 20 to 50 manats ($1–2.50) per day.
• The forced labour system is disproportionately harsh on women, who make up the majority of public sector workers, particularly in schools, kindergartens and hospitals.
• Children participated in the harvest, enduring backbreaking labour that Turkmenistan has officially recognised as dangerous and prohibited for minors. They worked in the fields, helping older family members meet harvest quotas, or were hired as substitute pickers due to poverty.
• Corruption is a driving force of the system. Heads of state institutions frequently pocket some of the funds extorted from employees that are meant to pay for hired workers. At cotton collection points, farmers are fleeced, for example, with the underreporting of the their harvest volumes carried out under various pretexts.

Ainabat Yaylymova, director of the Progres Foundation, part of the Cotton Campaign coalition, said: "The government of Turkmenistan must implement reforms to increase the independence of farmers, as well as the accountability and transparency of the agricultural sector. Farmers must be involved in policymaking, particularly regarding ensuring stable and equitable access to irrigation water.

"The EU and Germany, as co-financiers of the ‘EU for Green Turkmenistan’ program, which aims to support Turkmenistan in addressing the effects of climate change, must demand that the Turkmen government end its coercive control over farmers and allow them to independently determine the conditions under which they grow cotton and other crops."

Raluca Dumitrescu, senior coordinator of the Cotton Campaign coalition and representative of the human rights network Global Labor Justice, said: "In jurisdictions that have or will soon have mechanisms in place to prohibit the import of goods produced using forced labour (including within the EU, where the Forced Labour Regulation will soon be fully implemented), the relevant authorities should designate Turkmen cotton as a product produced using state-imposed forced labour and impose a ban on the import of all products made in whole or in part from Turkmen cotton, similar to the US Customs and Border Protection Detention Order."