Herausgeber: Contributing Editors: Patricia Jurewicz, Director, Responsible Sourcing Network, Alina Shlyapochnik, Intern, Responsible Sourcing Network
Schlagwörter: Kinderarbeit, Zwangsarbeit, Usbekistan, Menschenrechte
Kurzbeschreibung:
According to the most recent statistics from the International Labor Organization (ILO), over 129 million boys and girls, aged 5-14 years old, work in agriculture around the world. Many of these children labor in the cotton industry pollinating, harvesting, or ginning cotton that may eventually make its way into the clothes we buy.
In 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued an updated list of goods produced using child labor and forced labor Cotton and cotton seed were on the child labor list for 17 countries and on the forced labor list for 9 countries. Uzbekistan’s cotton is listed in the DOL report for being produced with both child labor and forced labor. While child labor in cotton production remains endemic in many countries, nowhere is it more organized than in Uzbekistan where the Government of Uzbekistan (GOU) forces over one million children to labor harvesting cotton each year. The government shuts down schools and public offices for months at a time, mobilizes the country’s students, teachers, and civil servants, and sends them to the cotton fields every autumn.
Children are given daily quotas which they must fulfill. Often it is mandated that they pick up to 110 pounds (50 kg) of cotton in a given day. Some children may be lucky to receive between $1.00 to $2.00 a day for picking that amount. However, they may then be charged for their food and lodging putting them deeply into debt. The Uzbek government can sell 100 pounds of Uzbek cotton on the open market for approximately $120 dollars (October 2011 cotton was trading at approx. $1.20/lb). This abusive practice earns the Government of Uzbekistan over one billion dollars annually.
Erscheinungsjahr: 2012
Umfang: 26 Seiten
Sprache: Englisch
Zielgruppe: Erwachsene
Bezug: PDF zum Download bei der Cottoncampaign.org.
