WORLD BRAND COMPANIES BOYCOTT UZBEK COTTON
In early November, the American non-governmental human rights organization “Responsible Sourcing Network”, which aims at uniting people for the eradication of slavery in the modern world as well as promoting sustainable development and fair business, announced that more than a hundred world brand companies boycotted the use of Uzbek cotton and textile for their produce. According to the company’s representative, this is an unprecedented number of companies that have joined the campaign against the use of child labor for picking cotton in Uzbekistan, which provides momentum for the campaign as a whole. Some sources suggest, however, that the Uzbek authorities will not suffer serious losses from the boycott as their produce can be easily directed eastwards.
The campaign against the use of Uzbek cotton started in 2007 when a number of local organizations on labor protection requested the Uzbek authorities to stop the practice of usurping the working population to pick cotton. After several attempts, they changed their requests and addressed the major authorities of Tashkent to allow the International Labor Organization (ILO) to monitor the cotton picking procedures, which Tashkent refused. Thus, the campaign has continued for five years and seems to win new supporters every year. Among them are world fashion and brand companies such as Levi Strauss, Fruit of the Loom, H&M, Gap, Zara, Wal-Mart, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and others. This year the boycott was also supported by the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA), which represents more than 75percent of the American producers in this sphere.
The NGO plans to continue the campaign until the ILO confirms that Uzbekistan has stopped using forced adult and child labor on its cotton fields. The NGO’s official site states that the practice of using child labor for cotton picking is spread worldwide. However, nowhere is the organization of such forced labor comparable to that in Uzbekistan, where millions of adults and children go to the fields every fall for almost no money and under careful supervision of law enforcement bodies. According to the calculations of human rights activists, cotton provides the Uzbek government with revenue of over US$ one billion annually.
The major incentive of the companies that joined the boycott is to protest against the use of forced labor, including child labor, on the cotton fields of Uzbekistan. As the analysts of the “Stock Leader” magazine note, using the population to pick cotton in Uzbekistan is a tradition that has its roots in Soviet times, when all labor resources would be mobilized for what was then termed the “fight for harvest,” supplying the Soviet textile industry with cheap raw material. While that time has passed, in Uzbekistan millions of people are called back from enterprises and school children from their studies in the fall for “working” vacations that last for a month or two.
The planning mechanism has also been inherited from the Soviet times, making representatives of local authorities (hokims) supply certain amounts of raw cotton from the territories under their authority, and the more they can supply the better. Thus, the cotton is purchased from farmers at very low price, but the state exports the product at a much higher price, ensuring a large difference between export and initial prices.
It should be noted that in spite of an official ban imposed by Uzbekistan’s government on the use of child labor for cotton picking, this year children were still involved in this activity. Thus, for instance, the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan held a rally in Yakkabag rayon of Kashqadaryo district and revealed that college and school students were involved in picking cotton.
Meanwhile, the “Stock Leader” magazine notes that the campaign has an insignificant impact on Uzbekistan’s government. Almost immediately after the announcement of the boycott, Uzbek authorities decided to redirect cotton exports to China. In fact, China is today one of the leading countries to supply textile to the world market. Furthermore, it would be very hard if not impossible to track which factories use Uzbek cotton. Therefore, the boycotting companies have few options other than asking textile producers to check the origin of cotton suppliers.
The campaign is important as it sends a clear sign of discontent of the major players in the cotton-consuming sector to the government of Uzbekistan. On the other hand, demand produces supply, and if Uzbek cotton suppliers will manage to find alternative consumers of their product, it is very unlikely that the human right activists will be able to lobby their concerns any further and have any major impact on the policies of the state in this matter.
