The world’s fifth largest cotton producer, Uzbekistan, is currently in the midst of a two-month-long harvest and, according to reports, a longstanding system of forced labor is again being used to gather the lucrative crop. For years, children as young as seven years old were forced to work in the cotton fields during the annual sowing, weeding
Uzbekistan Still Using Child Slaves To Pick Cotton
Uzbekistan may have cut back on its use of young child laborers, but its use of teens and others in its forced labor system continues drawing criticism from social groups, retailers and governments, who want to weed unethically harvested Uzbek cotton out of the supply chain.