Interesting question. The workers may get paid, but it is a pitiful wage. Regardless of the pay, the workers were doing other jobs or were in school before being forced by the government into the fields. For example, students who are in the middle of semester are pulled out of school during the harvesting season and are forced into the fields. Teachers, as public servants, are also pulled out of their jobs and forced into the fields. So, it’s not really an issue of survival for the workers. They don’t need this job. On the contrary, it’s the large landowners and the government officials that need the workers to maintain their high profit margins. Sadly, while kids and adults alike are forced into the fields for little pay, there is a massive unemployment problem that the Uzbek government is not addressing.

I don’t think that Uzbek cotton needs to be written off completely. What I do think; and I agree with the investors’ letter on this; is that the sector needs to be completely reformed under the supervision of an independent third party such as the ILO, Amnesty International, or Human Rights Watch. In fact, a monitoring committee composed of representatives from different groups would probably make this process much more reliable and transparent. However, the incentive for the Uzbek government to accept and push for this reform needs to be there. That incentive comes in the form of a boycott. Money does talk in this case.

-Nadira