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DE RUEHNT #0083/01 0210821
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 210822Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY TASHKENT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0318
INFO RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHAH/AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT 0034
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0000
RUEHDBU/AMEMBASSY DUSHANBE 0036
RUEHEK/AMEMBASSY BISHKEK 0046
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0088
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 0006
RUEHNT/AMEMBASSY TASHKENT
RUEHTA/AMEMBASSY ASTANA 0037
RUEHVEN/USMISSION USOSCE 0088
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC

UNCLAS TASHKENT 000083 
 
SIPDIS 
DEPT FOR SCA, DRL, AND G/TIP 
DRL/ILCSR FOR MARK MITTELHAUSER, TU DANG, AND ALFRED ANZALDUA, 
DRL FOR RACHEL WALDSTEIN 
G/TIP FOR STEVE STEINER AND MEGAN HALL 
DOL/ILAB FOR RACHEL RIGBY, TINA MCCARTER AND SEROKA MIHAIL 
ASTANA FOR ALMATY/USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM ECON ELAB EIND ETRD KTIP PGOV PREL SOCI UZ
SUBJECT: UZBEKISTAN: COMMENT ON DOL DRAFT LIST FOR TVPRA 
 
REF: a) REF:  A. SECSTATE 3075, b) B. TASHKENT 73, c) C. 08 TASHKENT 632 
 
Dept pass to Dept of Labor Washington DC 
 
¶1.  Per ref A, Embassy Tashkent appreciates the opportunity to 
comment on the Department of Labor's draft list of goods from 
countries that DOL has reason to believe are produced by forced 
labor or child labor in violation of international standards.  We 
recognize that child labor continues to be used during the fall 
cotton harvest in Uzbekistan, a practice dating from the Soviet era 
which is still largely accepted by Uzbek society.  However, we have 
long refrained from using terms like "forced" or "coerced" to 
describe the practice, as the overwhelming number of children who 
participate each year appear to do so voluntarily (refs B and C). 
It may be difficult for outsiders to comprehend, but cotton and 
cotton picking remain ingrained features of Uzbek life, and many 
young Uzbeks continue to see cotton picking as a means of earning 
money for their family and contribute to the economic development 
of their country.  Scattered reports exist of adults being forced 
to participate in the cotton harvests, but we also have noted that 
these reports are anecdotal and unreliable.  Clearly more research 
is needed of labor practices during Uzbekistan's cotton harvest, 
and we continue to urge the government to permit an independent 
assessment of labor practices during next year's cotton harvest. 
 
 
 
¶2.  In addition, we believe that publicly accusing the government 
of tolerating forced child or forced adult labor during the cotton 
harvest would be counterproductive, especially when such 
accusations appear to be based on unreliable sources.  This past 
year, the government publicly admitted that child labor was a 
problem and adopted a comprehensive plan to address the issue.  It 
continues cooperation with international organizations on finding 
alternative sources of labor for the cotton harvest.  We continue 
to believe that any serious attempt to combat child labor in 
Uzbekistan should not aim to eradicate the problem overnight, but 
rather should be part of a long-term strategy that addresses 
broader and related issues.  On the other hand, public accusations 
are likely elicit a negative reaction from the government and 
endanger its cooperation with international organizations. 
 
 
 
AN INGRAINED PART OF THE LOCAL CULTURE 
 
-------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶3.  Cotton and cotton picking remain ingrained features of Uzbek 
life since the Soviet era.  The need to produce a good cotton 
harvest for the motherland was instilled in Soviet times and 
continues to this day - especially outside the capital where some 
locals still refer to the money as "roubles" rather than soum (the 
national currency).  Most Uzbeks still sip tea every day out of 
blue ceramic cups emblazoned with a cotton motif.  The national 
soccer team proudly competes under the name "Paxtakor" (literally, 
the "Cotton-Pickers.")  Even a metro station in Tashkent is 
dedicated to the glories of cotton-picking.   Uzbeks understand 
from a young age that the "oq oltin" ("white gold") is the 
lifeblood of the economy and they believe that what little they get 
in terms of public services is made possible by the cotton 
production effort.  Many young Uzbeks, especially in rural areas 
where the practice is most prevalent, see nothing out of the 
ordinary about missing school to pick cotton, as their older 
siblings and parents did the same. 
 
 
AN EXHAUSTING RITE OF PASSAGE 
 
----------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶4.  Persons who have not spent long periods time in Uzbekistan 
might find it hard to believe, but many Uzbek students are actually 
eager to "go to cotton" each fall, which is still seen as a rite of 
passage.  On normal school days, Uzbek students return home and 
spend most of their free time not with friends, but doing household 
chores and fulfilling family obligations.  For ethnic Uzbeks in 
particular, social life can be restrictive.  Many students look 
forward to the annual mobilization to pack their guitars, trail 
mix-equivalent snacks, vodka (for university students), and head 
out to the farms.  The work can be exhausting, but they make the 
best of it.  Students sometimes have campfires and enjoy evening 
entertainment, which provide opportunities to mingle with members 
of the opposite sex more freely than at home. 
 
 
 
LACK OF RELIABLE INFORMATION ON COTTON HARVEST 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
 
 
¶5.  As reported in refs B and C, there are no reliable figures and 
few dependable sources of information regarding the true extent of 
child and forced labor in the country and conditions.  The latest 
available statistics from 2005 on the percentage of children 
involved in labor ranged from 2 to 19 percent.  International NGOs 
reported child labor statistics collected by local human rights and 
political opposition activists, but their research methods were 
flawed and unreliable.  Much information reported by local 
activists on forced child labor is anecdotal, unverifiable, and 
likely exaggerated.  International observers who examined reporting 
by local activists this year found that it sometimes did not track 
with what they had seen with their own eyes while conducting an 
informal, but widespread, survey of child labor practices this fall 
(see para 7). 
 
 
 
INTERNATIONAL NGOS REPORT DISTORTED STATISTICS 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
 
 
¶6.  After the 2007 harvest, human rights and opposition activists 
provided estimates of the number of school-age children involved in 
cotton picking ranging from tens of thousands to up to two million. 
Activists explained to poloff that the estimates were developed by 
conducting interviews with a limited number of individuals in 
specific districts of one or two provinces of Uzbekistan (usually 
in areas where the use of child labor is traditionally most 
prevalent) and then generalized their findings for the country as a 
whole.  But as the prevalence of child labor during the cotton 
harvest varies widely from region to region, such estimates have 
little basis in reality.  Nevertheless, several international NGOs, 
which lack any personnel in Uzbekistan to verify the activists' 
statistics, publicly reported the data without caveat. 
 
 
 
WHAT RELIABLE INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS FOUND THIS YEAR 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
 
 
¶7.  In contrast, we continue to believe that the most reliable and 
objective source of information on the use of child labor during 
the cotton harvest remains international organizations with 
personnel on the ground in Uzbekistan.  During the fall 2008 cotton 
harvest, international observers conducted informal monitoring in 
at least nine provinces of the country, traveling to less developed 
regions of each province to talk directly with children, parents, 
teachers, school directors, farmers, and local officials.  The 
results of the informal monitoring tracked with observations by 
Emboffs as they traveled through Uzbekistan's provinces during the 
cotton harvest this year. 
 
 
 
¶8.  Despite anti-child labor legislation adopted by the government 
this year, international observers reported that children continued 
to participate in the fall cotton harvest.  They found that the age 
of children picking cotton and conditions varied widely by region, 
with the majority of children older than 15 and the vast majority 
older than 11. International observers found that the time students 
spent picking cotton ranged from a few weeks to a month and half. 
Some children reported making up missed lessons during later school 
vacations.  International observers found no instances in which 
students were not promised a wage, but isolated instances where 
children had not yet been paid.  While schoolchildren generally 
returned home each evening, older students at colleges and 
universities were sometimes housed near more remote cotton fields 
and were away from home for longer periods of time, though 
international observers generally found conditions for them 
satisfactory.  International observers did not find any harmful 
pesticides or herbicides being used to produce cotton in 
Uzbekistan, which relies mostly on organic agricultural methods. 
 
 
 
 
¶9.  While conducting interviews, international observers found that 
the participation of children in cotton picking was still widely 
accepted by local officials, families, and the students themselves. 
Adults and students reported viewing cotton picking as a legitimate 
way to earn money for one's family and contribute to the economic 
development of the country, even if it meant students missed some 
lessons at school in the process.  International observers found 
that some children observed picking cotton did so with their 
parents outside of school hours.  While the overwhelming number of 
schoolchildren picked cotton voluntarily, international observers 
found a few instances where schoolchildren who resisted 
mobilization were threatened with lower grades at school. 
Nevertheless, such cases were by far the exception, not the rule. 
 
 
 
¶10.  There is much less information available on the total number 
of adults who participate in the annual cotton harvest each year, 
and the issue of forced adult labor has attracted far less 
attention than the use of child labor.  What information exists is 
anecdotal and largely comes from the same sources that have 
provided unreliable statistics on child labor during the harvest 
(see para 5 and 6).  Such sources report that teachers (along with 
their students) and other state-employees in certain regions were 
compelled to pick cotton from a week up to a month each year. 
There were no reports of adults not being paid for such work. 
 
 
 
¶11.  The vast majority of adults picking cotton, including many 
poor rural women, do so voluntarily as paid laborers.  These 
 
 
individuals are heavily dependent upon the income they earn during 
the cotton season.  Based on survey data, an international 
economist who has studied Uzbekistan's cotton sector extensively 
estimated that laborers could earn as much as 1 million soums (770 
dollars) over the course of a season, a considerable sum for rural 
Uzbekistan.  Other sources estimate that adult cotton pickers earn 
closer to 150 dollars a season.  In contrast, cotton pickers are 
paid approximately 200 dollars a month in Kazakhstan and less in 
Kyrgyzstan, which in turn attracts adult laborers from Uzbekistan. 
Many other adult males work for longer periods of the year as labor 
migrants in Kazakhstan and Russia, mostly in the agriculture and 
construction sectors. 
 
 
 
"FORCED" VERSUS "MOBILIZED" LABOR 
 
--------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶12.  In past reporting on labor practices during the cotton 
harvest, Embassy Tashkent has tended to use the term "mobilized" 
labor.  We believe that "forced" or "coerced" labor are loaded 
terms that conjure up nasty images of human slavery that do not 
accurately reflect the fact that the vast majority of Uzbek 
children and adults voluntarily participate in the cotton harvest. 
Such terms also misleadingly suggest that the problem can be 
resolved overnight if the government simply stopped "forcing" or 
"coercing" its citizens into picking cotton.  Instead, the term 
"mobilization" better captures the reality that manual cotton 
harvesting in Uzbekistan does not amount to slavery (as it is often 
portrayed by a handful of opposition activists and exiles with an 
axe to grind), but rather a practice that - while distasteful to us 
in the West - is for better or worse very much ingrained in Uzbek 
culture the country's economy and agriculture sector.  While 
isolated cases of coercion exist, the vast majority of Uzbeks 
picking cotton do not see it as an infringement on their rights, 
but rather a "right of passage" that, while not always enjoyable, 
is a means for them to earn money for their families and contribute 
to the economic development of their country. 
 
 
 
PUBLIC STATEMENT LIKELY TO HURT CURRENT EFFORTS 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
 
 
¶13.  We also believe that publicly accusing the Uzbek government of 
tolerating forced child or forced adult labor would be 
counterproductive.  While child labor continued to be used during 
the cotton harvest, the government for the first time in 2008 
adopted a comprehensive policy on the elimination of child labor in 
the form of a wide-ranging National Action Plan.  The government 
also continues to pursue cooperation with ILO and UNICEF on finding 
alternatives to child labor.  Given the importance of "saving face" 
in Central Asia and the Uzbek government's especially prickly 
nature, we believe that making public accusations, especially those 
based on unreliable sources, could elicit a negative reaction from 
the government and hurt ILO and UNICEF's efforts at engagement. 
 
 
 
THE WAY FORWARD ON COMBATING CHILD LABOR IN UZBEKISTAN 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
 
¶14.  Opposition activists who characterize labor practices during 
Uzbekistan's cotton harvest as "forced"  labor, or even "slavery," 
are actively campaigning for a boycott of Uzbek cotton, which they 
(rather naively) believe will weaken the regime of President 
Karimvov.  Frankly, such activists exhibit at best only a 
rudimentary grasp of economics and fail to comprehend how a 
sustained boycott of Uzbek cotton could wreak havoc on the 
country's economy and hurt ordinary Uzbeks, rather than the elite, 
who will always find ways to protect themselves.  International 
NGOs promoting a boycott also appear to accept at face value 
questionable reporting and analysis by opposition activists.  We 
are concerned that any public U.S. government statement about the 
use of forced child or forced adult labor will play into the hand 
of such groups and will be used to promote well-intentioned but 
misguided policies. 
 
 
 
¶15.  On the other hand, knowledgeable international observers on 
the ground in Uzbekistan have argued against pursuing a boycott of 
Uzbek cotton, noting that it could have many unforeseen, negative 
consequences.  Since the Uzbek economy is still dependent on cotton 
exports (though cotton accounted for only 12 percent of 
Uzbekistan's foreign earnings in 2007, down from 66 percent in the 
early 1990s), these observers note that any changes to the current 
system of cotton collection could have profound and unanticipated 
economic effects that may end up actually hurting those it is 
intended to help, including rural laborers and their children. 
International observers also note that a boycott could potentially 
hurt workers (and their children) in other countries which depend 
on Uzbek cotton, such as in Bangladesh.  Instead, knowledgeable 
international observers on the ground in Uzbekistan argue that any 
serious attempt to combat child labor in Uzbekistan should not aim 
to eradicate the problem overnight, but rather should be part of a 
long-term strategy that addresses broader and related issues, such 
as rural poverty, unemployment, labor migration, and the perverse 
effects of cotton quotas.  Until alternative sources of labor are 
in place, attempts to completely eliminate the mobilization of 
schoolchildren are likely to fail. 
 
 
 
BUTCHER 
NORLAND 
 
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