The World Bank in Uzbekistan: Labour Standards Take a Back Seat

Abstract

20 | International Union Rights | 24/1 FOCUS | WORLD BANK AND IMF The World Bank in Uzbekistan: Labour Standards Take a Back Seat After two decades of financing Uzbekistan’s agriculture sector, the World Bank received a complaint to its independent accountability mechanism in September 2013 filed by victims of forced and child labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry. The complaint filed to the Bank’s Inspection Panel alleged that one of its agriculture investments was contributing to forced and child labour1. The complainants argued that the Bank had failed to put in place adequate measures to prevent Bank funding from being used on agricultural lands on which forced and child labour is practiced. The Panel noted that ‘a plausible link does exist between the project and the alleged harms’ and identified significant issues of policy compliance2. In response, World Bank management promised to implement measures to mitigate risks of perpetuating child and forced labour in its projects. Viewing the proposed mitigation measures as adequate, the Panel did not undertake a full investigation3. The complainants strongly disagreed4. Since then, the Bank has drastically increased its funding to the Uzbek agriculture industry, claiming that it has mitigated the risks linked to its projects. But a forthcoming report from Human Rights Watch and Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights (UGF), Forced and Child Labor Linked to the World Bank Group Investments in Uzbekistan in 2015 and 2016, reveals that these measures are insufficient. The ILO recently determined from unpublished survey data that approximately two thirds of the 2.8 million people who participated in the 2015 harvest were recruited voluntarily, a ‘minority recruited involuntarily’, and the remaining were ‘to some degree reluctant’, due to poor working conditions and wages5. If many of those classed by the ILO as ‘reluctant’ workers were in fact coerced into working, up to one-third of workers (924,000 people) could be considered victims of forced labour in 2015. Human Rights Watch believes that the proportion of involuntary labour is much greater. The ILO has conceded that ‘many interviewees appeared to have been briefed in advance’.6 This corroborates our research: numerous people told Human Rights Watch and UGF that government officials or their supervisors told people to say they were picking cotton voluntarily. With few exceptions, when interviewed in a confidential setting, people told researchers that they undertook cotton work, not voluntarily, but because the government required them to, and they had been explicitly told or reasonably believed they would be punished if they refused.7 This combination of involuntariness and the menace of penalty is the very definition of forced labour under international law8. Forced, Child Labour in the 2016 Harvest Research and evidence compiled by Human Rights Watch and UGF for our forthcoming report – due to be published in May 2017 – illustrates that in 2016 (as in previous years), senior government officials ordered officials ‘to involve all employees in the cotton harvest’9. Regional and district officials implemented the central government’s orders by imposing labour mobilisation quotas on public institutions for cotton picking during the harvest, as well as planting and weeding in the spring. Officials imposed harvest quotas on institutions, which lead to financial and other penalties if not met. District and law enforcement officials monitored how many workers each institution contributed and how much cotton each institution delivered at daily cotton meetings. Officials threatened and punished heads of institutions that did not meet their quota with public humiliation, beating, disciplinary action, and dismissal. Heads of institutions, in turn, threatened employees and students with dismissal, expulsion, or disciplinary consequences to induce them to work. Heads of neighbourhood committees (mahallas) threatened residents with loss of welfare payments. Despite a significant reduction in child labour over the last five years, officials continue to force schools to send children as young as 10-11 years old to work in the cotton fields in some rural areas. In 2016, UGF and Human Rights Watch documented government-organised child labour in three regions of the country. Education workers emphasised that they were under pressure from ‘higher authorities’ to mobilise students. One education worker said that he and his colleagues had to ‘run after’ most of students. Some teachers...