FORCED LABOUR: Campaign to stop imports of Uzbek child labour cotton into the European Union

The start of the school year normally means nervous excitement, but for children in Uzbekistan it's a feeling of fear as hundreds of thousands are forced from their schools to pick cotton in life-threatening conditions.

Schools are closed down for the three-month cotton harvest and children, some as young as nine, are forced to pick cotton by hand. Students who fail to meet their targets or refuse to work are beaten or can face expulsion from school.

And the single biggest destination for this Uzbek cotton? The European market.

Gemma Wolfes from Anti-Slavery International set up a petition on Change.org calling for the European Union to end the trade preferences on Uzbek cotton imports. This week, a group of school children from Eastbourne will be presenting the petition to the European Parliament in Brussels.

Click here to add your name to the campaign and join them in speaking out against child labour.

Uzbekistan is the third largest exporter of cotton worldwide -- almost half of that cotton is picked by state-sponsored forced child labour. Children suffer appalling conditions during the cotton harvest. Many contract hepatitis from insanitary conditions and there have even been reports of police throwing stones at children who weren't picking cotton because they were sick.

Thanks to public pressure from human rights organisations, several UK retailers including Tesco and Marks & Spencer have already taken action to ban Uzbek cotton from their products -- but the European Union has failed to take action on the issue.

Thousands of signatures from across Europe will show the EU that citizens do not want cotton produced by forced child labour. Please add your name to the "Cotton Crimes" petition and call on the President of the European Parliament to end trade preferences on Uzbek cotton imports and stop child slavery now:

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-european-parliament-to-stop-supporting-forced-child-labor-in-the-cotton-industry

Thanks for being part of this,
- Brie and the Change.org team

Further Information: 

• UZBEKISTAN: Global clothing brands boycott Uzbek cotton (21 September 2011) 
• UZBEKISTAN: Fashion show of dictator's daughter cancelled amid child slavery protests (16 September 2011) 
• UZBEKISTAN: EU to consider forced child labour (14 June 2011) 
• CHILD LABOUR: EU Accused of Backing Child Labour (17 February 2011) 
• CHILD LABOUR: What has changed? Progress in eliminating the use of forced child labour in the cotton harvests of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (SOAS, University of London, January 2011) 
• CHILD LABOUR: Invisible to the World: The Dynamics of Forced Child Labour in the Cotton Sector of Uzbekistan (SOAS, University of London, January 2010) 
• ILO Convention on Minimum Age for Admission to Employment
• ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, 1999
• CRIN's Forms of Violence page on **Slavery**
• More on children's rights in Uzbekistan