ILO, Turkmenistan Adopt Roadmap to Eradicate Forced Labor in Cotton Fields
The International Labour Organization and the government of Turkmenistan have adopted a roadmap of cooperation detailing “priority actions” aimed at preventing tens of thousands of public sector employees, such as hospital workers, school staffers and utilities personnel, from being compelled into the severely repressive Central Asian nation’s cotton fields every year.
The issues are large, manifold and structural: Cotton production is wholly controlled by the state, which imposes aggressive quotas on farmers on the threat of penalties such as fines and the loss of their land. Pickers are subject to similar coercion, and anyone unwilling or unable to participate is required to hire replacements or risk pay reductions and unemployment. Officially, the government no longer conscripts minors, yet children as young as 10 are often seen picking cotton to scrounge up money for their families or serve as replacement pickers for relatives. The root causes of forced labor—a dearth of freedom of association, freedom of expression and collective bargaining rights—remain endemic and pervasive, making credible due diligence all but impossible.
More from Sourcing Journal
It isn’t for nothing, therefore, that the United States has maintained a Withhold Release Order on both Turkmen cotton and products produced in whole or in part with the same since 2018. Nor is it a coincidence that 150 multinational brands and retailers, including Adidas, Amazon, Gap Inc., H&M Group and Calvin Klein owner PVH Corp., have signed a public commitment shunning Turkmen cotton until the ILO determines that forced labor is no longer involved.
But the 2023 cotton harvest offered something new. For the first time in 10 years of consecutive monitoring by Turkmen.News and the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, both frontline members of the multi-stakeholder Cotton Campaign, authorities allowed teachers and doctors to leave the fields without paying for replacement pickers. The decision dovetailed with a visit to Turkmenistan by an ILO mission, which the organizations surmised might have been the trigger. Even so, the move had limited impact, with the mission noting in its interim report that it found “direct or indirect evidence of mobilization of public servants in all regions visited.”
That said, the relatively robust nature of the roadmap, which was published last week, paves the way for a “cautious optimism” about engagement between Turkmenistan and the ILO, said Allison Gill, forced labor program director at the Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum, the Washington, D.C. nonprofit that hosts the Cotton Campaign. “If all of the priority components in the roadmap were implemented, that would go a long way toward beginning to dismantle the system of forced labor.”
The document reiterates that forced or compulsory labor and the employment of under-18s are prohibited by the country’s constitution. It asks that the government release public statements denouncing forced or compulsory labor in cotton harvests, set “fair and decent” wages for cotton pickers to incentivize voluntary picking, create an “easy and accessible” way for workers to confidentially file grievances and complaints, promote social dialogue among cotton production stakeholders, and step up the prosecution of individuals and public officials found guilty of forced mobilization or extortion.
This is the first time the eradication of forced labor isn’t being discussed in nebulous terms, said Ruslan Myatiev, editor of Turkmen.news. “Although the government has not yet publicly acknowledged the problem, such a detailed plan gives hope,” he added.
But Gill has a couple of grouses. For one thing, the roadmap doesn’t appear to have been formulated with input from independent social partners. “Real” social dialogue, she said, requires involved parties to be independent of one another, yet Turkmenistan’s employers’ organization and its sole trade union are knotted up with the government.
Another is the lack of commitment to allowing freedom of association and other fundamental labor rights, when the “best way to prevent and resolve forced labor and labor exploitation is when workers have power,” she said. Without the right enabling conditions, any progress Turkmenistan may make could go the way of Uzbekistan, where despite “historic success” in ending state-enforced labor through economic reforms is in imminent danger of backsliding because civic freedoms continue to be curtailed. Without independent unions to protect their interests without fear of reprisal, workers are especially vulnerable to exploitative practices such as forced labor.
“It concerns me that in Turkmenistan, where we’re at the brink of something really important—because there are not a lot of openings in Turkmenistan and this is an important one—is that this appears to be so far a missing component,” Gill said. “I very much hope that it is incorporated and that the ILO is attentive to ensuring independent social partners and an emphasis on fundamental labor rights, including freedom of association, as part of the plan to dismantle state-imposed forced labor.”
Solve the daily Crossword
