JUNE 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Bank agreed to give Uzbekistan a $260m loan to improve irrigation in its agriculture, media reported, angering human rights activists who accuse Uzbekistan of using child labour to pick cotton. Cotton is one of Uzbekistan’s biggest exports although many Western fashion brands refuse to use it in their clothing.
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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
APRIL 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking for more allies in Asia, Uzbekistan plans to strengthen diplomatic ties and transport links with Bangladesh.
This Uzbek-Bangladeshi alliance, though, is based fully on business. More precisely, it is based on cotton.
An Uzbek government delegation begins a three-day visit to Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, on April 30. Media reported that it will open an embassy in the country, its first new embassy for several years, and re-start direct flights. Uzbekistan Airways had flown from Tashkent to Dhaka between 1996 and 2005 but dropped the route because it was a commercial flop. It is now expanding and it suits the diplomatic discourse to re-start the route.
The root cause of all this chumminess between Uzbekistan and Bangladesh is cotton. There are no historical, cultural or religious links. This is 21st century commercial diplomacy.
Cotton is one of Uzbekistan’s key exports but over the last few years it has found it increasingly hard to sell to the West. Western companies have grown more and more sensitive about Uzbekistan’s use of child labour to pick the cotton. Many Western companies imposed a boycott on Uzbek cotton, forcing Uzbekistan to look for new clients. It found these in China and Bangladesh.
Since 2012, cotton exports to both China and Bangladesh have increased enormously. Uzbekistan now supplies Bangladesh, one of the world’s biggest garment manufacturing countries, with 40% of its total cotton.
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(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The global price of cotton, a key export for Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, fell nearly 2% after the US government said that there would probably be an over-supply this year, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an echo of the Soviet Union’s efforts to control nature, Turkmenistan’s president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov wants to stop the Amu Darya river freezing over.
According to reports last month, the Turkmen minister for water resources has compiled a report for Mr Berdymukhamedov on how best to stop the mighty Amu Darya, which runs from the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan before fading into the desert just short of the Aral Sea, freezing.
The plan has not been revealed.
The Amu Darya river is particularly important to Turkmenistan as it not only supplies 90% of the country’s drinking water but it also irrigates many of its cotton fields.
Reports of a plan to bend Nature to Man’s will smacks of the Soviet Union. It diverted much water from the Amu Dayra and its sister river the Syr Darya river to irrigate the cotton fields. Its plan was to transform the region into a bread and cotton basket.
It managed this, to an extent, but, in the process, also dried out the Aral Sea.
Now the Amu Darya and Syru Darya rivers are a source of regional tension. They provide downstream Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan with drinking water and irrigation and upstream Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with power.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
JAN. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Evidence is mounting that Turkmenistan, like neighbouring Uzbekistan, forces people to pick its giant cotton harvests each year.
A report by the opposition Alternative Turkmenistan News (ATN) group said that school children were forced into the cotton fields each year to harvest the crop.
Attention has focused more on Uzbekistan’s use of child labour in its cotton harvest; the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) is supposed to be releasing the results of its investigation later this year into this practise.
But ATN said that the practise is also widespread across the border in Turkmenistan.
Of course, although still important, cotton is not as important to Turkmenistan’s economy as it is to Uzbekistan’s economy. Uzbekistan grows roughly three times the amount of cotton as Turkmenistan.
Even so, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has made a point of underlining how he has opened up the country and its cotton industry has been no exception. The authorities there want to build new cotton spinning plants and to increase exports of raw cotton overseas.
Perhaps the ILO should also be making plans for a trip to Turkmenistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
DEC. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor-General launched an investigation into possible child labour practices in southern Kazakhstan after it found 700 children picking cotton, media reported. International organisations have criticised Central Asia’s cotton industry, and in particular Uzbekistan, for using children to pick cotton harvests.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)
OCT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Islam Karimov said Uzbekistan had picked 3.35m tonnes of raw cotton this year, media reported. This is the same amount of cotton gathered in last year’s harvest. Uzbekistan’s cotton industry has attracted increased scrutiny over the past few years for allegedly using child labour.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan signed deals to export 680,000 tonnes of cotton fibre at its annual trade fair in Tashkent, a similar amount to last year, Uzbek state media reported. Western companies have boycotted Uzbek cotton over concerns it uses child labour but China and other countries, such as Bangladesh, have increased purchases.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Doubts are emerging over whether observer from the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) will be able to investigate effectively whether Uzbekistan still uses children to harvest its cotton.
Eight teams of monitors from the ILO have been in Uzbekistan since Sept. 23. Their job is to travel around the regions and detail any incidences of child labour.
Bowing to worldwide pressure, Uzbekistan last year pledged to give up using children to pick cotton. This year it invited the ILO to send teams to watch the harvest.
But reports are now leaking out that Uzbek officials may be working hard to give the UN monitors the run-around. Media and Uzbek opposition groups have said that because the ILO monitors are cooperating with the Uzbek authorities, their movements are tracked.
This means that officials can warn teachers when the ILO monitors are approaching, giving them time to usher their pupils from the fields back into the classroom.
Picking cotton is a labour intensive task, so if Uzbekistan has really stopped using children, who is harvesting it instead?
Not medical staff, the podrobno.uz website quoted Abdulkhakimov Hodzhibayev, a senior doctor, as saying. He was responding to reports that doctors and nurses were picking cotton instead of carrying out medical duties.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
SEPT. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shaking off the West’s child labour accusations, Uzbekistan signed a major cotton export deal with China, media reported. Uzbekistan will now export 300,000 tonnes of cotton fibre to China, half its total production.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)