More invaluable work from the Environmental Justice Foundation, in collaboration with Anti-Slavery International. Their latest thoroughly researched report estimates that one million children were subjected to slave labout during the 2009 cotton harvest in Uzbekistan.
This is essential work because it gives the lie to false UK, US and EU claims that the human rights situation under the Karimov regime is “improving”, thus “justifying” their continued alliance with Uzbekistan as a logistics base and route for operations in Afghanistan.
Here is a selection of key facts from the report:
?? Children as young as 10 years old can be dispatched to the cotton fields for two months each year, missing out on their education and jeopardizing their future prospects.
?? Uzbekistan is the world’s 3rd largest cotton exporter and earns around US$1 billion
annually from the sale of its cotton to clothing factories primarily in Asia, which in turn
export garments to the west; and to cotton traders, many of which are based in Europe.
?? Reports in November 2009 estimated one million children working in the last harvest.
Cotton picking is arduous labour, with each child ascribed a daily cotton quota of several
kilos that they must fulfil.
?? Children may be compelled to stay in barrack-like accommodation during the harvest.
Living conditions are often squalid. In those places where food is provided to children, it is
inadequate, often lacking in basic nutrition and children can often only access water
from irrigation pipes, which carries health risks.
?? Children can be left in poor physical condition following the harvest; illnesses including hepatitis, injuries and even deaths are all reported. The harvest begins in the late summer, when temperatures in the fields remain high and can continue until the onset of the Uzbek winter. Children are not provided with any protective clothing whilst they work.
?? Children receive little or no reimbursement for their labour, perhaps a few US cents per kilo of cotton picked. However, payments are deducted to cover their travel to the fields and the food they are provided with during the cotton picking season, which can leave them in debt.
The full report can be downloaded from here:
http://www.ejfoundation.org/page93.html
Every year young children die during forced labour in the Uzbek cotton fields. Millions of adults are also conscripted into slave labour. Islam Karimov and Gulnara Karimova get ever wealthier.
It is a stunning fact that Wal-Mart, Tesco, Asda and C&A have been so sickened by Uzbek child slavery that they have voluntarily banned Uzbek cotton and set up, at their own expense, audit systems to ensure there is not Uzbek cotton in products they sell.
Yet no government has used available anti-slavery provisions in international trade agreements to ban Uzbek cotton. The EU has never even discussed the matter while, thanks to the influence of Western governments, UNICEF has never made any statement or taken any position on child slavery in Uzbekistan.
This is arguably the World’s most depraved single act of inter-governmental complicity.
From the Independent – how can Straw claim such bollocks given your evidence?
“In response, a spokesman for Mr Straw – now Justice Secretary – said: “There has at no stage been any suggestion whatever of any impropriety by Mr Straw in respect of his responsibility for the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ during the period that he served as Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006.
“This absence of any suggestion follows the examination by the Intelligence and Security Committee and the courts of volumes of papers covering the period when Mr Straw was Foreign Secretary.
The noose tightens:
“Mr Davey added: “The implication that David Miliband had the wool pulled over his eyes is deeply embarrassing for the Foreign Secretary.
“However, the suggestion that he acted in good faith means the real questions need to be answered by others in Government. Did former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sign off on the ‘coercive techniques’ referred to in the judgment?”
In response, a spokesman for Mr Straw – now Justice Secretary – said: “There has at no stage been any suggestion whatever of any impropriety by Mr Straw in respect of his responsibility for the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ during the period that he served as Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/top-judge-speaks-out-against-mi5-over-binyam-mohamed-torture-row-1911628.html
@MikeD
patronage:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1251344/Files-reveal-MPs-misled-torture.html
That Kim Howells has an interesting career trajectory, from communist mining strike leader to privy counsellor and overseer of spooks.
I mean, the spooks would have taken quite an interest in the mining strike in the 1970s. They must even have taken an interest in him too. Now he’s supposed to be supervising them, and not making a very good job of it. I wonder is he just generally incompetent or is there more to it than that.
Craig,
Someone has seriously fucked up the homepage of your website
I am now seeing Craig Murray in double and have to scroll backwards and forwards to read the words.
Tony
So this is where you can sign a petition.
http://ethicalactions.blogspot.com/2010/01/write-uzbekistan-child-labour-campaign.html
I suppose this helps, and the website is good.
Craig: Stupid question: but do the Uzbekis actually want a boycott of their cotton? Or better working conditions?
I thought I remembered that Uzbekistan was the world’s largest exporter of cotton, two years ago, maybe? Has it since fallen to third place, and if so, is this due to cotton boycots, or the environmental disaster that is taking place there? One of the scenes in Murder in Samarkand concerns the ongoing fall in the cotton harvest.
Tony_opmoc,
it is browser dependent. Firefox 2 in Win 98 renders it nicely by truncating the right edges of the photo’s. Firefox 3.5 in Ubuntu displays the whole photo’s, forcing me to scroll to read the text.
Already drew attention to this. If Craig reduces the size of the Umida photo the problem will solve itself.
Meanwhile, if you want to read posts in comfort, click on the comments and read the post on that screen.
Polo & Clark,
I know absolutely nothing about this website, but the double Craig image may have nothing to do with whoever administers or designed this website. It may be a simple hidden HTML hack in a comment.
I have seen other such stuff done far more elegantly on other sites. I guess there is nothing illegal about it, but I personally think such behaviour is totally outrageous.
Meanwhile, this made me laugh more than anything else today.
Check out what inspired it
http://www.idontwanttoberude.com/
Tony
http://investigating.wordpress.com/ This is a report on how the Spaniards are prosecuting the Chinese for torture and crimes against humanity under Spanish Domestic Law. Could we perhaps interest someone in the Spanish judiciary to do the same to our villains? Jack Straw always denied that we tortured. Now the truth is coming out. We have to chase our own murderers and genocidists to the ends of the earth. Why doesn’t our law allow such prosecutions?
http://investigating.wordpress.com/ This is a report on how the Spaniards are prosecuting the Chinese for torture and crimes against humanity under Spanish Domestic Law. Could we perhaps interest someone in the Spanish judiciary to do the same to our villains? Jack Straw always denied that we tortured. Now the truth is coming out. We have to chase our own murderers and genocidists to the ends of the earth. Why doesn’t our law allow such prosecutions?
http://investigating.wordpress.com/ This is a report on how the Spaniards are prosecuting the Chinese for torture and crimes against humanity under Spanish Domestic Law. Could we perhaps interest someone in the Spanish judiciary to do the same to our villains? Jack Straw always denied that we tortured. Now the truth is coming out. We have to chase our own murderers and genocidists to the ends of the earth. Why doesn’t our law allow such prosecutions?
What is the origin of this child labour injustice? Is it Soviet collectivist colonialism, or western India-style colonialism or Asian feudal colonialism? Or is it Islamic colonialism or is it USUKIS post colonialism? Travelling through Turkey I saw miles of cotton, well irrigated and worked by men and women. In Pakistan I saw hundreds of mills processing cotton on an industrial scale.
Water = crops = cash in USUKIS post-colonialism. Why call it post-? because when you post the product, you are in effect posting water out of the country of origin. Cotton is one of those blessings of Allah which has outlasted synthetic materials and it is surely profitable enough without this slavery of child exploitation.
Are the Uzbek authorities afraid of creating an affluent adult rural population that will assimilate Islam out of their control? If so, it seems that the USUKIS war on terror obsession against Islam might be the source of the problem.
Talking of which, it stinks that the powers that be are using Binyamin Mohammed’s case for political purposes to disgrace New Labour just before the election. Elections are used like confessionals to sweep away sins, and make fresh clean starts for the bastards in power. The more crap you can load onto the outgoing politicians the whiter than whiter the new ones coming in. The Sys have thick skins, they don’t mind a bit of criticism because they’re anonymous and also they are ‘real’ Gradgrind men.
As Craig says, the UK establishment is up to its necks in colonial exploitation. I for one am happy that one principled organisation in the world , the Taliban, is standing against this globalised criminality. However much the powers that be try to denigrate them, they are the only force to name, shame and engage the corruption of our time.
Anno,
It’s Imperial Russian olonial in origin, became much bigger, more systemised and brutal under the Soviets and is at its most vicious under Karimov.
A fascist Zionist type has just been on Any Answers. He was admiring of Mossad and critical that MI5/MI6 are subject to judicial rulings. He would be quite happy to give sole responsibility to a politician like Miliband or Straw. Incredible that there are such nitwits within the population.
Tony, maybe the reason you’re seeing the web in double is down to the boozy liquid lunch you had ?
Craig,
Thank-you for your report.
White Gold: The True Cost of Cotton is pretty comprehensive. I have not checked YouTube for the accompanying DVD but if not there I will try to upload.
I guess this was in Murder in Samarkand: during Soviet times 80% of cotton in UZB was collected using machines, now figure is less than 20%…
Tony
Scroll down the posts till you come to the photo. It’s 950 pixels wide. That’s most of a screen for most of us.
Sting and Gulnara only get 468 pixels between them.
Parky is probably watching wide screen for the gorey details 🙂
Parky,
I very rarely have a boozy liquid lunch.
Maybe its just me and the Irish who see it
Check out
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
Copy and Paste this into your browser, I assume you know how to do that
What do you see?
I see two identical photographs of Craig Murray, but have to scroll to the right to see all of the second photograph and read all the words
The second photograph of Craig Murray is not overlaid with any words
Maybe you should give up smoking, or maybe someone has tried to project Craig in 3D and I need to look at it splair eyed (thats the reverse of cross-eyed) with a bigger monitor
Tony
I think it might be because the banner image is set as the background to an html table. The 950 pixel image has stretched the page and with it the table, making the banner image repeat itself.
I think I’ve found the source of the double picture problem. Warning: HTML jargon follows.
For individual blogposts, there’s an “td” tag with a colspan of 2, and a background of header.jpg. That looks ok. But for the main page, there’s another “td” tag, with the same background image, but the colspan is 3. This causes the background picture to repeat.
Craig
Just this week I’ve seen you cited as an authoritative source in two articles; one in Moneyweek on Sting’s hypocrisy, and again in Medialens on Frank Gardner’s unending drivel.
What with the radio play and your vindication over the torture business, it certainly looks like the wind is now firmly at your back.
I believe there’s an election in the offing.
Better late than never, eh.
It’s a pity that this Colonel didn’t have the same guts and resolve as Craig. Perhaps if his salary and pension hadn’t spoken so loudly, Baha Mousa might still be alive.
http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m63677&hd=&size=1&l=e
“But for the main page, there’s another “td” tag, with the same background image, but the colspan is 3. This causes the background picture to repeat.”
It seems to, if you’re in IE 7 or 8. Double the masthead but no text. And it must be the same for Polo.
But when I’m in Netscape Navigator, the masthead is fine, both on the main blog page and in individual posts, and the text is not stretching nearly 1.5 screens wide as it does in IE 8. It’s a common problem — html coding has to suit all browsers. This only appears to suit Netscape which is becoming redundant.
But you do need a smaller Umida pic. About half its size at best.
Tony,
Re: http://www.idontwanttoberude.com/
I had a look at him on YouTube. What a yob.
dreoilin, what’s your source on the 83 cameras at the Pentagon? I google “83 cameras” + Pentagon, and most of the results ultimately lead to right-wing American conspiraloon websites.
(Now I have given full opportunity to discuss 9/11 here, any further references on other threads will be instantly deleted).
Posted by craig on January 28, 2010 4:48 AM — on the 9/11 thread.
dreoilin,
“Re: http://www.idontwanttoberude.com/
I had a look at him on YouTube. What a yob.”
Yes, bit I would vote for him on entertainment value alone, as well as the fact that much of what he says is patently true
Its about Democracy, not Dictatorship.
The political view be it left or right
is irrelevent.
There is Supposed to Be CHOICE
NOT DICTATORSHIP
Strangely enough no one had heard of Lady Godiva of Upholland, even in Upholland
I thought my Mother-in-Law must know her and maybe related to her cos she knows everyone in Upholland and has got Ashton family connections.
So I toured the pubs of Upholland and drank a few pints of Pendle Witch
I couldn’t find anyone who had ever heard of her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Ashton
Tony