The former Soviet state maintains high government cotton-production quotas, which result in the conscription of large numbers of adults and children alike to work in the fields for two months a year.
The EJF report – ‘Still in the Fields’ – maintains that despite signing international agreements banning the use of child labour, the Uzbek government continues to put children as young as 10 in fields, with high daily quotas to fulfil and minimal wages. Children were found working in roughly 60 per cent of the fields visited by the campaign group.
Uzbekistan is the world’s largest cotton exporter, and supplies manufacturers in Asia and cotton traders in
Europe. Read the full EFJ report.
