Focus on child labour in the cotton industry

With Uzbekistan's new cotton season approaching, there have been new calls for regulation of the widespread use of child labour in this key export sector. Despite some economic growth since independence in 1991, Uzbekistan remains agrarian, with cotton, as it was in Soviet days, by far the most important crop. Demand for juvenile labour remains strong during harvesting campaigns. Whole villages and families are forced to work the land, as the output of the kolkhoz - the old Soviet word for collective farm - is tightly regulated. Families rely on the labour of their children, from five years old, to help out in hard times. Officially, Uzbek law discourages child labour. But the requirements of the national economy, continue to outweigh its obligations to international standards. Uzbekistan, despite its membership of the International Labour Organization (ILO), has ratified only one of twelve of its conventions banning child labour. In theory, Tashkent subscribes to norms and laws that are harsher than international standards but also are more general. But these laws are laxly enforced, and tend to run counter to strong traditions that have condoned the use of children in working life for generations. An Uzbek interior ministry official who didn't want to be identified, told IRIN that the government was aware of international condemnation of its policy of utilising vast numbers of children to gather cotton, but said, right now, there was no viable alternative. "We are stuck with our history. Moscow made us the top cotton producer in the old USSR and until we can diversify our economic base we must produce and sell cotton like crazy. The harvest is hugely labour intensive, so we are forced to use kids." The official added that the way forward, given the realities, was to ensure children were not exploited, worked under favourable conditions in cotton farms and that their education was not compromised by the long months of agricultural labour each year. "This is what the government is trying to achieve." But such reforms appear along way off. When IRIN visited cotton fields last November in Syrdarya province, 100 km from the capital Tashkent, groups of children, working alongside adults, could be seen labouring in the freezing rain to bring in the remains of the harvest. One girl, cold and weather-beaten, looked up from shuffling in the mud picking the very last of the season's crop. "We are taken to the fields every year," Jamilia, a school student from Tashkent, said. "In summer we get going at first light, we have to study after classes to catch up. We have to pick at least seven kg of cotton a day. We do not receive any money for the 'white gold' we pick. They say the money is all spent on food and supplies." IRIN also met a second year student from Namangan teachers training college who had been assigned to a cotton farm 220 km from the eastern city where she lives. She complained her left foot was injured, but that the supervisor on the cotton fields refused to allow her to see a doctor because she had picked so little cotton that day. The student said many of her friends suffered from influenza and other respiratory diseases as well as malnutrition, due to the poor diet on the cotton fields. The UN children's agency UNICEF acknowledges the extent of the child labour problem in Uzbekistan's cotton industry. "UNICEF is working with the government on this issue and we hope to launch a campaign to coincide with the next cotton picking season to educate families and community leaders on the impact of cotton picking on the health and education of the children." Brenda Vigo, head of UNICEF in Uzbekistan, told IRIN. A human rights groups in Samarkand, Uzbekistan's second city, said the most common violations of labour law included employing young people without contracts, taking on children without parental consent, having them work long, unregulated hours in dangerous circumstances and allowing no time off for education. "We are working with local governments, mahallahs [community councils] and schools to lobby for the phasing out of child labour in cotton. Progress has been made. In Tashkent Oblast [province], for example, the government has effectively outlawed child labour," said Inkilob Yusupova, head of the Children's Fund of Uzbekistan, a local NGO. But observers are sceptical that such initiatives will have much impact on humanising the industry. "We know the risks [associated with juvenile cotton picking]," a father of four told IRIN at a village near Syrdarya, capital of the province of the same name." But we are forced to give up our children for cotton each season, we have no choice, if we don't we starve," he added starkly.