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Cotton campaign page summary on Turkmenistan

Comments Concerning the Ranking of Turkmenistan by the United States Department of State in the 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report
February 2020 | by the International Labor Rights Forum on behalf of the Cotton Campaign

Kazakhstan: over 2,000 citizens have been illegally detained over the past 6 years

The pre-trial investigation authorities don’t pay due attention to the issues of proving the guilt of the suspect before bringing him/her to justice. As a result of this negligence, more than two thousand citizens have been illegally detained over the past six years. Such a verdict is contained in the Concept to the draft “On amendments and additions to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan concerning the implementation of a three-tier model with delineation of powers and areas of responsibility between law enforcement agencies, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Court”, which was presented by the General Prosecutor’s Office of the republic.

Authorities in Kazakhstan Can’t Take a Joke

Temirlan Ensebek, a 25-year-old from Almaty, Kazakhstan, is under criminal investigation on charges of “disseminating knowingly false information” in connection with the satirical Instagram account Qaznews24, which he ran for a few weeks in April. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison. On May 15, police detained Ensebek for questioning, carried out a search of his home, and confiscated two mobile phones and a laptop. After several hours of questioning, Ensebek was released. His lawyer, Zhanara Balgabaeva, told Human Rights Watch that she and Ensebek had to sign nondisclosure agreements.

New FAO-led food security and nutrition report for Europe and Central Asia elaborates on the costs of a healthy diet

Affordable healthy diets can trigger positive development in nutrition, sustainability.

ILO calls for resilient occupational safety and health systems for future emergencies

Better national occupational safety and health policies, institutional and regulatory frameworks, that are also integrated into crisis response, are needed, says the International Labour Organization.

Recent workers’ victory reveals the rot in Uzbekistan’s public life

The much heralded privatisation of the Central Asian state’s cotton sector has led to claims of exploitation. But workers are fighting back

New Social Contract: Five workers’ demands for recovery and resilience

The ITUC is setting out five key demands from working people to build recovery and resilience, putting people and the environment at the centre of the new social contract. Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, outlined the demands during the World Economic Forum, with an ITUC session on the subject taking place at the World Social Forum on the 26 January and a detailed blog on the issues: “The choices made by world leaders and by business in 2021 will either heed the call of workers and civil society to reform the economic model and help create a just and sustainable future or maintain business as usual and see a model of corporate greed entrench inequality, exclusion and despair perpetuating instability for our communities and our planet.”

Uzbekistan joins EU’s GSP+ arrangement

The EU has accepted the Republic of Uzbekistan as the 9th beneficiary country of the special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance (GSP+) under the unilateral Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP). The EU will start applying preferential tariffs for products imported from Uzbekistan under this arrangement from 10 April 2021.

THE TIME FOR WORDS HAS PASSED. UZBEKISTAN SHOULD SIMPLIFY THE RULES FOR REGISTRATION OF NGOS AND LEGITIMIZE CIVIL SOCIETY VOICES

According to the state register of NGOs, 9,200 non-governmental organizations, national and regional, are registered and operating in Uzbekistan today. Meanwhile, the vast majority of these organizations are branches of large quasi-governmental NGOs (GONGOs) created by the state. Registration of independent NGOs is in fact a cumbersome, painful process and, despite criticism by international human rights defenders, Uzbekistan is in no hurry to change the rules to make it easier for civil society to formally register as independent organizations.

Cotton Production in Turkmenistan: Use of Forced Labor in an Inefficient System

Amsterdam/Vienna, 23 March 2021. Two Turkmen non-governmental organizations, turkmen.news and the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, have today published their joint Review of the Use of Forced Labor in Turkmenistan During the 2020 Cotton Harves. The report is based on monitoring by the NGOs’ staff in four of the five regions of Turkmenistan — Ahal, Dashoguz, Lebap, and Mary.