Uzbek cotton farming

One in four t-shirts in the UK contains cotton from Uzbekhistan. The country is the second largest exporter of cotton in the world, selling over 800,000 tonnes of cotton every year. Europe is its major buyer. But while the former Soviet Republic is at the forefront of global cotton production, its human rights and environmental record lags far behind the rest of the world. Forced child labour, human rights violations, excessive pesticide use, the draining of an ocean and severe poverty are all rife in cotton production in Uzbekistan.

Every autumn, the government of Uzbekhistan shuts down schools and sends students as young as 7, and their teachers, to harvest cotton by hand for little or no financial reward. Those who fail to meet quotas or refuse to take part are punished.

Alongside their human rights violation is the damage the State is wreaking on the environment.

In order to irrigate its 1.47 million hectares of cotton fields, the Uzbekistan regime has all but eradicated the Aral Sea. Once the world’s fourth largest body of water, the Aral is now reduced to just 15% of its former volume causing the disappearance of the sea's 24 species of native fish from its waters, the drying out of associated wetlands and the creation of tens of thousands of environmental refugees; all former dependents of the Aral's ecosystem.

We do not sell clothes made from Uzbek cotton and we will continue to be rigorous about checking on my supply chain. As consumers, we try to buy fair trade cotton and cotton which clearly states they originated from other countries, like Turkey, Egypt, India, or USA.

The information about Uzbek cotton industry has been excerpted from the article on the Environment Justice Foundation’s website.