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Eurasia
June 30, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
Child labour in Uzbekistan not over, says HRW, slamming World Bank, ILO
bne IntelliNews
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on June 27 accused the World Bank and International Labour Organi- sation (ILO) of deliberately looking past the contin- ued use of child and forced labour in Uzbekistan. A new HRW study, based on two years of field work and leaked government documents, has revealed that Uzbek children were being pushed to pick cotton as late as last autumn, it said in a statement.
Uzbek cotton is largely exported to China and Bangladesh where it enters the textile manufac- turing industry very often producing clothes for the West. Currently, around 200 global apparel brands are committed to a compact not to use Uz- bek cotton in their supply chains. The government has made the development of the textile industry one of its priorities. It has pledged to invest $1bn by 2019 to support 70 textile projects.
HRW’s claims – also made after hundreds of interviews conducted by the organisation and the Uzbek-German Forum – are in stark contrast with conclusions drawn by the ILO about last year’s cotton harvesting season in Uzbekistan. The ILO, a UN body, reported in February that organised child labour was now regarded as socially unac- ceptable in Uzbekistan and that the Soviet-era practice had been phased out. The ILO opinion featured in a World Bank statement released in the same month.
The World Bank has provided continuous sup- port for Uzbek agricultural projects despite being urged by rights groups to suspend its loans. The HRW study said that it remains necessary for the international financial institution to suspend all
Experts insist child labour is now very infrequent amid Uzbekistan's cotton harvesting, but HRW said it discovered the practice in five places.
agricultural sector loans to Uzbekistan. The terms of its latest $500mn loan have been violated by the failure to bring forced labour in the Central Asian country to an end, it concluded.
The European Parliament approved a textiles trade deal with Uzbekistan last December, end- ing a five-year stalemate after commending the country for its efforts to eradicate child labour. The deal overlapped with the coming to power of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev following the death of Islam Karimov, who had ruled for 27 years, in September.
HRW’s statement accuses the World Bank of turn- ing a blind eye to the continued practice of child labour as it seeks to maintain its improved institu- tional relations with the Uzbek regime. “The World Bank needs to make sure that it is making deci- sions based on what is happening on the ground and not on the basis of an improved relationship that it has with the Uzbek government,” senior Hu- man Rights Watch researcher Jessica Evans said.
The ILO’s monitoring work in Uzbekistan had been compromised because it was forced to include government officials, government-affiliated un- ions and other groups on its monitoring teams, HRW said. Researchers at HRW also highlighted the ILO’s admission that workers interviewed by its own monitors in the cotton fields seemed to have been coached.
While the report raises questions about the World Bank’s role in the controversy, it is also damaging to the image of Mirziyoyev, who is widely seen as a reformer.