Cotton campaign

Stop forced and child labour in the cotton industry of Uzbekistan !

Brussels, May 31, 2012

The European Union should urge the Uzbek government to grant access to the International Labour Organization (ILO) to monitor the 2012 cotton harvest, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations said in letters to the European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton and Denmark’s foreign minister, Villy Søvndal. The monitoring plan is part of efforts to end forced labor, including the state-sponsored mobilization of children, in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector.

The letters were sent on May 29, 2012, in connection with the opening on May 30 of the ILO’s annual International Labour Conference in Geneva. The letters urge the EU – a key participant in the meeting – to be unequivocal in its message to the Uzbek government about the need to allow such monitoring given consistent and credible evidence of the continuing practice of forced labor and child labor in the cotton sector. The coalition also urged Brussels to take into account the Uzbek government’s persistent failure to address the EU’s other longstanding human rights demands, including the need to eradicate endemic torture in the criminal justice system and end the continuing crackdown on independent civil society.

Read more posts and sign the petitions on http://www.cottoncampaign.org/