Stakeholders Urge Administration to Confront Forced Cotton Labor in Uzbekistan
Thirty retail industry, human rights and other advocacy organizations urged Obama administration officials in an Aug. 12 letter to ratchet up pressure to eliminate forced labor in the Uzbekistani cotton sector. The Uzbekistan government is poised to once again “coercively mobilize more than a million of their own citizens to pick cotton,” in the coming weeks as harvest season in the country begins, said the organizations, including the National Retail Federation and the American Apparel and Footwear Association. The administration officials should specifically pressure Uzbekistan to do the following:
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- Instruct government officials and citizens acting on behalf of the government not to coerce anyone to pick cotton and prosecuting anyone who does engage in such coercion
- Ensure farmers can recruit labor by: setting the price for raw cotton to exceed production costs, including labor; setting minimum wages for work in the cotton sector sufficiently high to attract voluntary labor; and publicly advertising on behalf of farmers to recruit unemployed citizens to work the harvest
- Permit unfettered access for the International Labour Organization to monitor the use of forced and child labor during the upcoming harvest and to conduct a survey of the application of ILO Convention No. 105 on the Abolition of Forced Labour throughout the Uzbek economy, with the participation of the International Organisation of Employers, International Trade Union Confederation and International Union of Food Workers
- Allow independent human rights organizations, activists and journalists to investigate and report on conditions in the cotton production sector without facing retaliation