(Photo: Human Rights Watch)
The World Bank is providing cover for a government system of child labor and forced labor in Uzbekistan, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch and the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights. The report, “‘We Can’t Refuse to Pick Cotton’: Forced and Child Labor Linked to World Bank Group Investments in Uzbekistan,” details a system of forced labor and child labor in Uzbekistan’s agricultural sector, which is bolstered by half-a-billion dollars in World Bank funding.
Under the loan agreements, the World Bank is able to suspend the loans if the Uzbek government does not comply with laws prohibiting forced labor and child labor. “The World Bank needs to make clear to the Uzbek government and to potential investors that it wants no part of a system that depends on child and forced labor by suspending funding until these problems are solved,” said Umida Niyazova, director of the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights.
(You can learn more, take action, as well as read the full report.)
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