Eleven people, including a 6-year-old boy, died during UzbekistanΆs cotton harvest this year, according to a stunning new report.
“It is the largest number of people who have died in a year, as far as I know,” said Matt Fischer-Daly of Cotton Campaign, a coalition of labour and human rights activists and agencies, which released the report on Wednesday. “There have been tragedies but (IΆve) never seen a year with so many deaths.”
The report also says the Uzbek government introduced extensive measures to create an impression of “voluntary work in cotton fields,” especially for visiting International Labor Organization monitors. However, government officials once again coerced more than a million citizens, including those as young as 15, to cultivate and pick cotton this year, said the report.
Uzbekistan, in Central Asia, is notorious for the autocratic rule of President Islam Karimov, who has been in power since 1990. Observers say dissent is not tolerated and persecution of human rights is rampant.
Especially in the cotton fields.
The harvest runs from September to November, and every year the government forces hundreds of thousands of its people, including children, to pick the cotton, say activists.
Schools and public offices close for months as children and civil servants work in the fields. Farmers are told to grow the crop and if they fail to meet harvest quotas, they can be evicted from their land.
This year, Uzbekistan harvested 3.35 million tonnes of cotton. The country is the worldΆs fifth-largest exporter of cotton and earns $1 billion (U.S.) annually in exports. About 70 per cent of the cotton goes to China and Bangladesh, two of the worldΆs largest garment exporters.
In this yearΆs harvest, Tursunali Sadikov, a 63-year old farmer, died of a heart attack after being mercilessly beaten by a local official. Amirbek Rakhmatov, a 6-year-old who accompanied his mother to the cotton fields, napped in a trailer and suffocated as cotton was piled on him. His body was discovered at a raw cotton storage facility in the evening.
Nine others, including teenagers, died while working in the fields.
International Labor Rights Forum created a map that show shows abuses across the country.
“It was shocking to see how widespread it was,” said Responsible Sourcing NetworkΆs Patricia Jurewicz.
This year, the Uzbek government allowed the International Labor Organization to observe the harvest for the first time, but it manipulated the monitors, said Fischer-Daly.
Government officials coached people to say they were in the field voluntary, he said in an interview. “They took teens back to school when ILO visitors came.”
Officials also silenced Uzbek human rights monitors through arrests, imprisonment and intimidation, he added.
However, because of the ILO observers, few children under the age of 14 were forced to work, said Jurewicz.
Activists say they had hoped for some change in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan this year because of growing international awareness.
But that change didnΆt come.
Jurewicz said the one way to stop the Uzbek government was to put pressure on brands and retailers to refuse cotton from that country.
Almost 140 apparel brands and retailers, including CanadaΆs Loblaw, have pledged not to use Uzbek cotton but consumers canΆt know for certain that the clothes on their back or the sheets on their beds arenΆt tainted by slave labour, said Fischer-Daly.
Among other things, “retailers have to demand to know the source of the cotton and follow it up with documentation,” he said.
ItΆs hard, he agrees, “but it can be done. Retailers have to do it.”
Uzbekistan has also been in the headlines recently for the public humiliation and downfall of KarimovΆs daughter, Gulnara Karimova, once the heir apparent.
Fischer-Daly says a change in leadership offers new opportunity.
“It would be in the interest of a new leader to make significant reforms in Uzbekistan, starting with a change in forced labour policies.”
“Change would be good.”