Investors and Human Rights Activists Pressure Government of Uzbekistan to Stop Using Forced Child Labor

Aug. 15, 2008- Socially conscious shareholders, pension funds and human rights advocates have joined together to demand that the government of Uzbekistan stop using forced child labor in its cotton harvest. Every year, the government of Uzbekistan reportedly mobilizes hundreds of thousands of children – many from ten to fifteen years old – for the manual harvesting of cotton. Read the full press release.

In 2007, the BBC broke a major story exposing a disturbing connection between forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s lucrative cotton industry and corporate beneficiaries higher up the supply chain. Up to one third of Uzbekistan’s workforce is systematically coerced to plant or harvest cotton, including hundreds of thousands of children, many in the range of ten to fifteen years old. In the middle of it all is the repressive government of President Islam Karimov. There is a growing urgency among Uzbek activists, international NGOs and UK apparel brands and retailers to end the Uzbek Government’s practice of busing school children off to the fields every year to harvest cotton. Find out more.