AKIPRESS.COM - The Cotton Campaign sent a letter and appendix report to the World Bank President and Executive Directors on May 27.

They wrote to share their concerns about two proposed new agricultural sector loans to Uzbekistan, the South Karakalpakstan Water Resource Management Improvement Project and the Horticulture Development Project.

“Given the real possibility that funding under the new projects could support the Uzbek Government’s forced labor system of cotton production we strongly urge you to postpone consideration of these loans until the Uzbek Government takes concrete steps to end its use of forced labor,” the organization said.

The mass use of forced labor in the cotton sector of Uzbekistan is particularly pernicious in that it is organized by the state. The World Bank acknowledges this problem in project documents for each of the proposed projects, they stressed.

In Uzbekistan, farmers who produce cotton are subject to a state order system of forced labor. The Uzbek Government owns all land and coerces farmers to produce annual quotas of cotton. Farmers must sell the cotton at state-established, artificially low procurement prices. If farmers fail to meet the government-mandated quota for cotton production, they risk losing their lease to farm the land, criminal charges and physical abuse.

The Government also forcibly mobilizes students aged 16-17, university students, teachers, health-care and other public-sector workers, private-sector workers and pensioners to harvest cotton each fall. Uzbek activists who monitored the harvest in 2013 noted no major changes in the state order system, the forced labor of farmers to cultivate cotton, or the massive government mobilization of forced labor to pick cotton. Although only mandated to monitor child labor and despite severe restrictions placed on monitors, ILO recognized that cotton is produced in a forced labor system.

The Cotton Campaign was established to improve human rights in Uzbekistan. They allege that the Karimov administration “detains, tortures and exiles Uzbek citizens who call for recognition of human rights, violating their human rights and denying freedoms of speech and the press” and that the forced labor system in the country “violates the human rights of Uzbek citizens and condemns future generations to a cycle of poverty.” The Cotton Campaign actively seeks for government change in respecting human rights and to permit the International Labor Organization (ILO) to monitor production in the country.