Labour in the cotton fields of Fergana Region, eastern Uzbekistan, 17 September 2017. Photo courtesy of Uzbek-German Forum for Human RIghts. All rights reserved.
While President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan tucked into his third course at a New York dinner with wealthy American businessmen on Wednesday night, university students back home were preparing for a long day in the fields plucking cotton.
Despite the president’s promise to outlaw forced labour in the country from which I am exiled, institutions all over the country received an order to send their able-bodied staff and students to harvest cotton. September should be the start of the academic year. Instead, faculties, schools, kindergartens, as well as companies and hospitals, are emptying out as employees are ordered into the sweltering heat to work 14-hour days.
