Cotton retailers fight child labour

It is considered one of the most exploitative industries in the world. In Uzbekistan, gangs forcibly remove hundreds of thousands of children from schools, order them to pick cotton in the searing heat and live in squalid conditions on pitiful wages.

Blended by manufacturers thousands of kilometres away, Uzbeki state-controlled cotton is sold to the world's biggest retailers, making the repressive regime the third biggest exporter of "white gold" and earning the Government US$1 billion ($1.6 billion).

But, in what has been described as a major breakthrough, a decision by some of the world's biggest clothing businesses has forced the Uzbeki Government to sign International Labour Organisation conventions that commit the country to stop using child labour in its state-sponsored industry. Retailers that have pulled out of the central Asian state include the biggest UK and US retailers.

Steve Trent, director of the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), said: "This is a major step forward. Virtually nothing persuaded the Government to change course. But the actions of retailers and campaigners are definitely now having an impact. But the key question that remains is whether the Uzbeki Government will implement the conventions."

A conference this week in London organised by the Ethical Trade Initiative and the UK supermarket giant Tesco will invite overseas retailers to withdraw from Uzbekistan to force the Government to move faster.

"We became aware of real problems in Uzbekistan," said Alan Wragg, Tesco's clothing technical director.

"Government-organised forced child labour literally forced kids out of school into vans. It's awful. The fact that its industry is sponsored by the Government and there's 40 per cent unemployed in the country makes it worse. So when we became aware of this, we told our suppliers not to use Uzbeki cotton in the supply chain."

Until recently that was not easy because most cotton garments are blended from a number of different countries and it was hard to work out where cotton was sourced. But new technology now offers retailers the ability to track and trace all items that make up a garment. Tesco claims to be the first UK retailer to use this system to trace whether cotton comes from Uzbekistan.

In 1991 Uzbekistan emerged as a sovereign country after more than a century of Russian rule. Uzbekistan has the largest armed forces and is the most populated country in central Asia. A UN report has described the use of torture as "systematic".

Journalists and campaigners exposing abuses in the Uzbeki cotton industry have been harassed and arrested.

It is alleged children are taken from their homes to harvest cotton and prepare the fields for sowing. According to a range of campaigners and journalists including the BBC, children work up to 11 hours without protective clothing, adequate rest or water.

The Uzbeki Government disputes its cotton industry sponsors forced child labour, saying this claim has been spread by cotton-producing countries that are losing market share.

FASHION CRISIS

THE CLAIM
Human rights group say gangs in Uzbekistan force children to work in the state-controlled cotton industry.

THE DENIAL
The Uzbeki government disputes that its cotton industry sponsors forced child labour, saying cotton-producing countries losing market share are behind the claim.

- OBSERVER