Teachers, Students Spend Teachers' Day in the Cotton Fields: Human Rights Groups
October 1 was Teacher's Day in Uzbekistan. In a speech to mark the holiday, President Islam Karimov reiterated promises to raise teachers' salaries, and decreed a number of awards to educators who illustrated a "a significant contribution to improving the intellectual and spiritual potential of the country, raising the harmoniously developed young generation in the spirit of national and universal values," the state news site UZa.uz reported. On cue, hand-picked teachers and officials "expressed their gratitude to the head of state for great attention and care, and respect, material and moral stimulation of the teaching profession."
But as in past years, the celebration was marred by the reality of some of the teachers' lives -- they and their students have been forcibly mobilized since mid-September to bring in the cotton harvest, the Paris-based Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (Asie Centrale) reports.
According to reports from Uzbek human rights monitors in three provinces of the Ferghana Valley, both teachers and students as young as 10 spent Friday, October 1, Teacher's Day in the fields, then stayed over the weekend picking cotton, sleeping overnight on site, Asia Centrale reports. They were given meager meals of only noodles and rice porridge with vegetables and no meat, and were feeling weak. To be sure, parents have formally given permission for their children to be taken to the fields, but that's because they feel intimidated if they refuse, fearing problems with the authorities, say human rights activists.
In Harakat, Shodibek Khamraev, head of the Bekabad district administration, ordered children from schools Nos. 6, 7, 11, 13 and 55 to be sent to the cotton fields, Harakat.net, a local news site reported. The students were given a quota of 70 kg per day, and the administrator demanded that teachers take attendance of children at work in the fields as well as record the total cotton picked. The district mayor has reportedly threatened teachers with reprisals if they fail to comply with orders. Residents have been complaining to police about child labor, but no action has been taken -- possibly because officials are reluctant to take on Khamroev, who is also a member of the budget and economic reforms committee of the Oliy Majlis (parliament), haraket.net reported,
Meanwhile, unemployment has been high in Uzbekistan with the return of many migrant laborers this year who were unable to find work in Russia and other neighboring countries due to the global recession. In Kokand, when a farmer announced he would pay cash and recruited 50 pickers, 150 people showed up, and said rather than turning anyone away, they would all work together to get the job done faster and split the wages among themselves, ferghana.ru reported.
In a newsletter issued September 29, the Uzbek-German Human Rights Forum cited Uzbek Human Rights Society reports that in Kashkadarya province, school children as well as college students and military and even the Nasaf soccer team and their coach were in the fields.
Javlon Togaev, a student at Guliston University in Syrdarya province was expelled from university for failing to appear at the cotton harvest, BBC's Uzbek Service reported. Bakhtiyor Khamroev, a human rights activist from Djizzakh said the University denied the student's expulsion was over his refusal to pick cotton, but did not explain the reason. Khamroev said like other students, Togaev received a letter from the rector saying if he did not attend the harvest, he would be expelled. He appealed to the rector but was told the decision was final, so he went to pick cotton and was expelled anyway. Khamroyev said cotton-pickers are paid 120 soums (about 5 cents) per kilo, and quotas are set at 30-40 kg for school-children; 70-80 for college students and 100 kg for university students, meaning students may earn only $2-5 per day.
Yelena Urlaeva, head of the Tashkent-based Human Rights Alliance told News Briefing Central Asia (NBCA) that schools and colleges are closed while teachers and their students head to the fields, where a heavier security presence has been found in some areas with troops in camouflage uniforms guarding the fields.
Since passing legislation prohibiting forced child labor in last year, Uzbekistan's top leadership appears to avoid direct connection to orders for children to work. Yet top officials hound local administrators to increase production under the state quota system, and look the other way while they use state-controlled media to turn out everyone to the harvest. Khorezmskaya Pravda, a state newspaper in northern Uzbekistan published an appeal under the headline "Cotton is Our Pride, Our National Wealth," urging everyone to work in the fields, according to NBCA. It's a context that many parents and officials understand from long experience to mean that they must involve children in the harvest.
Muslim clerics in eastern Andijan were drafted to support the campaign and an article in a local newspaper said "picking every gram of cotton is a sacred duty for every Muslim," NBCA reports. An educational official in a Tashkent suburb interviewed by NBCA who requested anonymity said he saw nothing wrong with the campaign that implicitly involves children, pointing to a colorful billboard by the roadside with the message "Cotton 2010".
“We’ve been picking cotton for 20 years,” he said. “And our children will gather it," NBCA quoted him as saying.
With crop failures due to floods in Pakistan and cold weather in China, prices for cotton on the world market have reached $1.00 per pound, and Uzbekistan, which has enjoyed an unusual bumper crop this year, stands to benefit.
Uzbekistan will hold its 6th annual international cotton fair in Tashkent on October 13-14, and human rights campaigners are hoping to draw attention to the conditions in Uzbekistan where both children and adults have been forced to labor on the harvest.
Russia buys most of the cotton grown in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), says ferghana.ru, with 40 percent of Russia's cotton imports coming from Uzbekistan.
The question is whether local Uzbek farmers will benefit from the windfall this year. Bobomurod Razzokov, a farmer from Bukhara interviewed by Radio Ozodlik, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Uzbek Service, says the government's strict quota system means farmers are unlikely to see any profits, as their production expenses are high and the government pays a set price, keeping the benefits of the jump in world prices for the state.
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