UZBEKISTAN: COMMENT ON DOL DRAFT LIST FOR TVPRA

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 To view the entire SMART message, go to URL http://repository.state.sgov.gov/_layouts/OSS SearchResults.aspx?k=messageid:39016a54-af56- 4c32-bc9a-fc0f0b92bf9a