Is it true, as the Uzbek government claims, that while child labour was used in its Soviet past, the practice has since ceased?
In Soviet times Uzbekistan achieved a comparatively high level of social and economic development, although these achievements coincided with a number of acute social and environmental factors. Almost half the cotton used to be harvested by machines. Today, as a result of mismanagement, lack of reforms, failed incentive systems and inequitable distribution of cotton revenues, the use of machinery has been reduced to zero. Nowadays, despite some minor improvements (for instance, the introduction of quality control, packaging and stocking systems), the cotton industry as a whole is regressing. The scale of forced labour has correspondingly increased as mechanization has declined. Declining social and economic conditions related to the regression of the cotton sector have been especially devastating in rural areas.
