Formal Complaint Filed with the World Bank Inspection
Panel
(Washington, DC)
– September 5, Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, Human Rights
Society of Uzbekistan “Ezgulik” and Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights filed a
formal complaint to the World Bank Inspection Panel. These organizations,
representing Uzbek citizens who have suffered under the state-organized system
of forced labour cotton production, requested an investigation of the World
Bank’s Rural Enterprise Support Project Phase II (RESP-II). The Bank has failed
to prevent World Bank funds from contributing to government orchestrated forced
labour, stated the three leading Uzbek human rights organizations.
“The World Bank
should be supporting sustainable rural development in Uzbekistan, beginning
with the eradication of forced labour,” said Nadejda Atayeva, Association for
Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA). “World Bank lending to the Uzbek
agriculture sector has only facilitated the continued suffering by our
children, students, and adults, who are forced to produce cotton each year,”
said Umida Niyazova, Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights (UGF).
For decades, the
government of Uzbekistan under President Islam Karimov, who has ruled since
1989, has forced millions
of children, teachers, public servants and private sector employees to pick
cotton under appalling conditions. Those who refuse are expelled from school,
fired from their jobs, denied public benefits or worse. Authorities detain and
harass activists seeking to monitor the situation. During the Spring 2013,
authorities mobilised children and adults to plough and weed,
and authorities beat farmers
for planting onions instead of cotton. In August, authorities initiated preparations to
coercively mobilize nurses, teachers and other public sector workers to harvest
cotton.
The World Bank
approved funding for the RESP-II in 2008 and 2012. While World Bank Management
has repeatedly stated that the Project’s aim is to diversify agricultural
production, it is not possible for the World Bank to finance agricultural
projects without supporting the state-order system of cotton production, which
is underpinned by forced labour.
“The fact remains
that all farmers are required to fulfill annual quotas of cotton production in
order to maintain the lease of their land, their livelihood,” said Ms.
Niyazova, UGF. “In several meetings, the World Bank has been unable to
identify any action taken to ensure that its loans are not supporting the
cotton sector and its forced-labour system of production.”
As the complaint
details, the World Bank ignored the issue of state-sponsored forced labour in
the RESP-II Social Assessment, carried out prior to the project, and has since
failed to conduct due diligence to ensure that the project does not contribute
to this problem. The only assessment of social impacts of RESP-II was wrought
with internal contradictions and outright falsehoods. The Bank continues to
assert that it is addressing the problem of “child labor” through educating
farmers, ignoring the facts that the system of forced labour is organized by
the government, not the farmers.
Attempts to
engage the World Bank were met with dismissals of the concern, denials of
responsibility, and refusal to share basic information. Instead of conducting
desperately needed human rights due diligence, the Bank listed as a risk
associated with the project, “[e]xternal NGOs may continue raising child labor
issue with the Bank” as a risk associated with the project.
“The only clear
message to the Uzbek people from the World Bank has been ignoring our rights,”
stated Ms. Atayeva, AHRCA. “We demand that the Inspection Panel immediately
investigate the facts relating to the RESP-II project.”
The complaint is available online at: http://uzbekgermanforum.
CONTACTS:
In Germany, for Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights, Umida Niyazova, +49-17687-532684, um
In France, for Association Human Rights in Central Asia, Nadejda Atayeva, +33.61.746.1963, n.
In United States, for Cotton Campaign, Matthew Fischer-Daly, +1.347.266.1351,
