Jonas Astrup News Today

Uzbek cotton farmers are celebrating the lifting of a 13-year-old international boycott of their product following a finding that the cautiously reform-minded government is no longer using organized forced labor to harvest the economically vital crop. The decision will open the door to long-closed markets for one of the world’s biggest cotton producers, including major…

Rights groups praise reforms but call for continued scrutiny and more progress 

New Delhi, May 2: In the midst of a gloomy international economic scenario, a piece of good news has popped up like a sunray on the horizon. Last month the global boycott of Uzbekistan cotton was lifted, a result of years of hard work by both ...

Uzbekistan has succeeded in eradicating systemic forced labour and systemic child labour, according to new findings from ILO.

State-sponsored use of slave labor to pick cotton was once a factor that turned Uzbekistan into a pariah on the internati

Almost two million people are recruited every year for the annual cotton harvest in Uzbekistan. The country has succeeded in eradicating forced and child labour during the 2021 cotton production cycle, according to new ILO findings.

6 Feb in 11:00 Emerging Europe A combination of government-led reform, international pressure, higher wages, and the return of migrant workers from abroad has all-but eradicated the use of child and forced labour in the Uzbek cotton harvest. As Emerging Europe reports, although some local vestiges still remain, the systematic and systemic use of child and forced labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry has come to an end, according to a new report from the International Labour Organisatio...

“When I was a child, we unfortunately missed a lot of school classes because of the cotton harvest,” says Dilshoda Shodmonova from Chircik, near the capital Tashkent. “Today, thanks to the reforms, my own daughter can go to school uninterrupted and get her education. This encourages me to continue my work as a labour rights activist.” According to the ILO, the country is making significant progress on fundamental labour rights in the cotton fields. More than 96 per cent of workers in th...