The European Council adopted a protocol which provides privileges and free customs and tariff market access block to the textile industry of Uzbekistan , after the controversial visit of its president, Islam Karismov to Brussels last month. Human rights organizations are campaigning against the measure in a context where Western boycott Uzbek cotton ethical considerations, despite the European authorities reported several times that the textile industry uses cotton harvested by children forced to work. also argue that it is an encouragement, in fact, child labor, which violates human rights and other international laws.
humanitarian organizations for over a decade denounce child labor in the cotton industry, which has the approval State. Uzbekistan is the third largest cotton exporter, with sales of 850,000 tons per year. The sector generates over 1,000 million dollars year . over 90 percent of the harvest is done by hand and the authorities organized the mass labor to ensure compliance with quotas.
Schools, colleges and universities remain closed for months at harvest time with the consent of the education authorities. Families who refuse to send their children are intimidated, threatened with losing social benefits, the supply of gas, water, electricity. Minors frighten them with excluded from education. "One million children were mobilized" to work in the latest crop of cotton, said Jean-Paul Delmotte, representative of the United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF) in Uzbekistan. Many of them are between 13 and 18, but "varies from one region to another and some may even be less" . It is known that up to seven young.
whole industry that exploits around a million children a year.
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