In recent years, Uzbekistan has increased the number of public-sector workers required to pick cotton, because the country nearly ended child labor in 2014 after pressure from the international community, including the Solidarity Center. Recent reports, however, indicate that the practice of forcing children to pick cotton has not ended in all parts of the country, with children sent to the fields.
The return of child labor is one of many examples showing that Uzbekistan’s promised reforms have not yet fully become reality, and the Uzbek cotton fields remain full of abusive practices, even resulting in death. Najmiddin Sarimsoqov, 58, became the first victim to lose his life in the Uzbekistan cotton fields this harvest season when he died of a brain hemorrhage as he prepared to pick cotton in Jizzakh Region’s Zafarobod District on October 8.
Each year, the Uzbekistan government forces approximately 1 million people to work in the country’s cotton fields, picking a crop that makes up nearly a quarter of the nation’s GDP. The Walk Free Foundation, a group committed to ending forced labor, estimates that 4 percent of the country’s population is sent to the fields.
According to experts, the situation in Uzbekistan is unique, since the work is mandated by the government, a practice that dates back to the Soviet era. This makes monitoring and addressing the situation in Uzbekistan even more difficult, because monitoring must be conducted in tandem with Uzbekistan officials.
According to the Cotton Campaign, a coalition of organizations “dedicated to eradicating child and forced labor in cotton production,” of which the Solidarity Center is a member, the Uzbek government’s practice of forcing doctors, nurses, and teachers to work in the fields is extremely detrimental to the nation’s health and education services.
This year, however, the Uzbek government claims to have sent many of these public-sector employees out of the fields and back to their schools and jobs. The decision, made by President Shavkat Miriziyoyev, presumably comes after Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, put pressure on the country to end the horrific practice. However, this situation has not been remedied.
Many of the public employees no longer forced to work are instead required to pay their replacements at costs that are unaffordable. Some teachers, who had been sent back to their classrooms from the fields, were forced to pay $40 to local officials, half of their monthly salary.
Praise for Uzbekistan Liberalized Labor Laws ‘Premature’
Steve Swerdlow, a Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, called praise of the news regarding Uzbekistan’s supposedly liberalized labor laws “premature,” as long as activists face threats of violence and detention. “President Mirziyoyev’s government should send an unambiguous message to independent activists and cotton monitors that their work is valued and that they will be free to monitor this cotton harvest without retaliation or interference,” he adds.
The Solidarity Center and its partners have long been involved in the fight against forced labor in Uzbekistan. A report released earliert this year highlighted worker rights abuse in areas with World Bank investments. Even more recently, the Uzbek-German Forum published a report on forced labor in these areas, highlighting the World Bank’s failures to stop the practice in areas where it invests, such as Karakalpakstan, a region in the western area of the country. Together with its partners in the Cotton Campaign, the Solidarity Center has joined in calling on the World Bank to live up to its promises in Uzbekistan.
Despite government claims to the contrary, it is clear that Uzbekistan’s cotton fields are still rife with forced labor and child labor, and the Solidarity Center and its allies will continue the struggle for decent work in Central Asia and beyond.
Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau says the Solidarity Center will “double down” in its next 20 years on advancing an agenda of inclusion for the global labor movement in asserting the right to form unions. Credit: Kaveh Sadari
“The Solidarity Center is at the forefront of global movements to protect freedom of association and hold corporations accountable,” according to the resolution. “As the Solidarity Center begins its next 20 years, it commits its future to a global labor movement based on true equality and inclusion for all workers.”
“And the Solidarity Center—with you, and with the dozens of unions and millions of workers we can ALL call allies—will double down on that over the next 20 years to make sure it happens.”
CBTU President Terry Melvin was among convention delegates speakng in support of the AFL-CIO resolution on the Solidarity Center’s 20th anniversary. Credit: Solidarity Center/Tula Connell
Bricklayers President Jim Boland introduced the resolution, and representatives of several U.S. unions and affiliated organizations stood to speak in support of Resolution 26: “The Solidarity Center—Twenty Years of Standing up for Workers around the World,” including Coalition of Black Trade Unions (CBTU) President Terry Melvin and IFPTE President Gregg Junemann.
The Solidarity Center is holding its 20th Anniversary celebration dinner November 15 in Washington, D.C. Sponsorship opportunities are available, and there is still time to buy individual tickets.
In conjunction with the celebration, the Solidarity Center also is hosting a book launch discussion on the new publication, Informal Workers and Collective Action. Click here to RSVP.
The government in Zimbabwe is moving to ban market vendors in Harare at a time when more than 90 percent of the workforce labors in the informal economy and 85 percent or more Zimbabweans are seeking decent work.
Zimbabweans are struggling for their fundamental right to earn a living. Credit: Thando Khoza
“People who are into street vending are not into it for their liking, but are being forced due to the collapsed economy,” the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) says in a statement.
“Instead of harassing vendors, the government must first of all restore economic growth and create the promised 2.2 million jobs. By doing so, all vendors will vanish overnight,” says ZCTU.
The Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Economy Associations (ZCIEA), which represents some 200,000 members, has been seeking to address challenges identified by government and business in negotiations with the Harare central business district since January, and urges that “Operation Restore Order” ordered by the Harare City Council acting town clerk not be implemented.
“The laws and regulations which govern the informal economy are very much outdated and informal economy traders are always criminalized or termed illegal,” ZCIEA says in a statement. ZCIEA says the government’s designated vending sites are not accessible to customers because of their distance, and urges continued discussion among vendors and central business district representatives.
Zimbabwe street vendors also were targeted with eviction in 2016 and protested the move in Harare. Credit: Solidarity Center
Many people have turned to street vending after losing their jobs, and the 2.2 million market vendors now generate an average $3.96 billion in annual revenue. The number of market vendors also has increased because people are struggling to get by following a recent sharp hike in prices for basic goods.
The government waged a similar crackdown on market vendors in 2015, tearing down market stands and forcing vendors to pay high fees to set up stalls at government-approved sites.
“It is the combination of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to freedom of association that strengthens responsive democratic governance systems and ensures the full and meaningful exercise of the right to participate in public affairs,” writes Ciampi in her first report to the UN General Assembly.
Annalisa Ciampi’s first report as UN Special Rapporteur finds that worker rights go hand in hand with democratic development. Credit: UN
Ciampi, whose three-year term as Special Rapporteur began May 1, is an attorney and a professor of International Law at the University of Verona in Italy, and a visiting professor of European Human Rights Law at the Monash University Prato Center in Italy.
Worker rights go hand in hand with democratic development, according to the report, with the Special Rapporteur emphasizing “the mutually reinforcing relationship between freedom of peaceful assembly and of association … and democracy and development.”
(Ciampi is moderating an October 17 panel, “Expanding Space within the United Nations,” an event co-sponsored by the Solidarity Center. The side event at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York City will bring together national representatives, UN bodies and civil society representatives to discuss strategies to more effectively promote and protect civic space in the UN system through the development of responsive and inclusive UN mechanisms and processes.)
In the new report, “Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association,” Ciampi also outlines topics for upcoming reports, which include looking at how the rights to assembly and association are exercised in the context of multilateral institutions, and examining practices that promote and protect the right to form unions.
Ciampi plans to take an active role in strategic litigation cases before national, regional and international courts in cases relating to freedom of peaceful association and of assembly.
“As the Special Rapporteur previously reported, ‘workers face considerable opposition, harassment, stigmatization and even physical attacks’ in the exercise of these fundamental rights,” says Solidarity Center Legal Director Jeff Vogt.
“We welcome the commitment of Prof. Ciampi to use the legal authority of her office to intervene in support of workers’ rights in domestic litigation. Such interventions not only works to provide a remedy to workers, but also builds positive jurisprudence on the right to freedom of association.”
Previous UN Reports Examined Broad Range of Worker Rights Issues
Ciampi takes over from Maina Kiai, whose six-year term as Special Rapporteur saw a broad range of reports on the status of freedom of association in an era of global closing civic space. Among them, “The Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association in the Workplace” found that without assembly and association rights, including the right to strike, workers have little leverage to change the conditions that entrench poverty, fuel inequality and limit democracy. Further, the report stated that discrimination, abuse and relegation to jobs at the bottom of the global economy undermine women workers’ ability to join and form organizations that defend their interests. Previous reports on freedom of association and assembly also looked at worker rights to form unions in countries such as South Korea, Chile and Kazakhstan, and examined issues that include the right to freedom of assembly and association in the context of elections and business.
A Special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or country situation. The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association includes studying trends, developments and challenges in relation to the exercise of these rights; making recommendations on ensuring their promotion and protection; and reporting on their violation, as well as on discrimination, threats or use of violence, harassment, persecution, intimidation or reprisals directed at those exercising these rights.
When Mwahamisi Josiah Makori, a Kenyan mother of three who worked as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia, first arrived at her new employer’s house, she was given only 20 minutes before she began work. After that, she began a three-month period which involved hard labor, brutal sleeping conditions, and no pay. For three months, Makori cleaned two houses, took care of children, and was regularly beaten by her employers. Makori, who told her story to the Solidarity Center, now lives in Kenya after returning home after never receiving pay for her work.
Mwahamisi Josiah Makori, a Kenyan mother of three, was abused by her Saudi employer, who never paid her for her work. Credit: Solidarity Center/Kate Conradt
The conditions Makori faced, and which millions of workers around the world endure, fall outside the realm of what is called “decent work.” While all jobs come with inherent value, decent work entails jobs that are safe, pay living wages, take care of workers, provide breaks, and empower women.
This Saturday marks the 10th anniversary of World Day for Decent Work, which this year is focused on living wages, and the importance of minimum wages in ensuring that all workers can afford a quality standard of living. Some 80 percent of people surveyed around the world say the minimum wage in their country is too low, according to the International Trade Union Congress (ITUC), which spearheads World Day for Decent Work.
Makori and millions of others are forced to migrate for work because the only jobs available are in the informal economy, where low and unsteady pay, unsafe working conditions and lack of sick leave or other benefits often mean they cannot support themselves or their families.
More than half of all workers in the world are part of the informal economy, the majority of whom are women. By enabling informal economy workers, migrant workers, women workers and others traditionally excluded from union membership to join together to bargain collectively and demand their rights under the law, the Solidarity Center works to empower workers to raise their voice for dignity on the job, justice in their communities and greater equality in the global economy. Together in unions and worker associations, workers have the power to create decent work for themselves and ensure the work they do comes with dignity and economic justice.
Solidarity Center Standing up for Decent Work around the World
KUDHEIHA connects with community members in Mombasa during an education campaign on migrant worker rights. Credit: Solidarity Center/Deddeh Tulay
Recently in Kenya, the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotel, Educational Institutions, Hospitals, and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA), a Solidarity Center partner, made key progress in its struggle to strengthen the rights of workers who migrate from the country for work. Labor brokers often give workers false information about the wages and working conditions in other countries. A new proposal, crafted by Kenya’s Labor Ministry and KUDHEIHA, would require employers to provide workers with their contracts up front, so that there is no question of what workers should expect before they leave.
Elsewhere, Solidarity Center programs further advance rule of law and gender equality in unions and communities. In Iraq, for instance, union leader Sultan Mutlag Ahmed participated in a Solidarity Center labor law training and so was equipped to bring justice to construction workers by winning back their unpaid wages through a successful court case.
The Solidarity Center also is part of a global campaign to combat gender-based violence at work, one of the most tolerated abuses of workers’ rights. Together with the ITUC and global allies, the campaign seeks to build critical support for the adoption of an International Labor Organization convention on gender-based violence.
As unions around the world stand up for decent work October 7, you can support and follow the actions on Twitter with the hashtag #WDDW and #OurPayRise. Also check out the ITUC’s World Day for Decent Work to download logos and infographics.
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