Uzbekistan Rural Enterprise Support Project

On 12 June 2008 the World Bank approved the Rural Enterprise Support Project, Phase II for Uzbekistan. The project’s stated objective is “to increase the productivity and financial and environmental sustainability of agriculture and the profitability of agribusiness in the project area.” This was to be carried out through “the provision of financial, infrastructure and capacity building support to newly independent farmers.” As of September 2012, the project made loans of “US$ 25.7 million to 317 agribusinesses to finance agricultural machinery, processing equipment, packaging equipment and materials, investments in tree-crops, poultry, fishery and livestock production.”

The project was designed, in part, to diversify agricultural production, reducing the reliance on cotton as a cash crop and increasing the cultivation of fruits and vegetables as well as the raising of livestock. Other goals of the project include improving irrigation and drainage systems and providing training and advisory services to farmers to strengthen farm management capacity. A second round of funding for the project was approved in September of 2012.

Civil society groups claim that this project is contributing to the perpetuation of forced labor (both children and adults) in cotton farms. Amidst these concerns, a number of leading Uzbek human rights organizations filed a formal complaint with the World Bank Inspection panel a year after this second round of funding, in September of 2013. BIC serves as a liaison between these complainants and the Panel.

Widespread and systematic use of forced child labor in manual cotton picking occurs every autumn at the direction of the Uzbek government. School children as young as ten years old are forced to pick cotton in inhuman conditions under the supervision of teachers, school administrators, and government officials from mid-September through late November, resulting in several months of missed classes. In many cases schools are shut down and students are bused from their homes to rural areas where they are housed in ill-equipped dormitories for the duration of the harvest. The children are required to pick cotton for more than 12 hours per day and those who fail to meet the daily cotton quota—as high as 60 kgs for older children—are routinely beaten.

The conditions that children are subject to during the cotton harvests present serious hazards to their health and development. The extensive use of pesticides in the cotton fields exposes the working children to high levels of dangerous chemicals which can lead to respiratory illness, skin diseases, and other health problems. Additionally, the dormitories where students are housed are unheated and in many cases lack access to clean water and sanitary facilities, increasing rates of communicable diseases. Finally, workplace safety standards are not observed in the cotton fields, leaving children at risk of debilitating injury. There is generally little access to medical services for children working in the cotton fields and children who develop illnesses are often forced to continue working while ill.

The fact that every fall the Uzbek government forcibly mobilizes more than a million children and adults to participate in the grueling and hazardous cotton harvest has been acknowledged and condemned by a myriad of UN bodies, the European Union, the United States government, non-governmental organizations and private companies.

In planning a loan to the government controlled agriculture sector the World Bank should recognize and address the serious risk of contributing to the problem of widespread government orchestrated forced labor in the sector. However, the World Bank failed to carry out an assessment of sufficient quality to genuinely determine what steps are necessary to prevent the project from contributing to forced labor. Only one paragraph of the Social Assessment discusses the problem of child labor in cotton production at all and this paragraph is riddled with contradictions, mathematical errors, and outright falsehoods. As a result of this flawed assessment, the World Bank continues to insist that there is no risk of child labor related to the project and states categorically, without providing any documentation, that “[t]here have been no cases of use of child labor in RESP II”.

Because the World Bank has not required a genuine assessment of the forced labor problem be conducted, it completely misunderstands the problem. Throughout the project documents the World bank asserts that it will prevent contributing to child labor by educating farmers and requiring farmers who receive World Bank funds to sign contracts prohibiting their use of child labor. Such education efforts and contract provisions have absolutely no impact on the child labor problem in the country because farmers have no control over the system of forced labor and child labor. It is the government, not the farmers, that forces children and adults to work in the cotton fields and thus the Bank cannot expect to address the issue of forced labor through engagement at the farm level.

On September 5 the 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 labor cotton production, requested an investigation of the World Bank’s Rural Enterprise Support Project Phase II (RESP-II). For more information, see the accompanying press release.

This request was registered by the World Bank’s Inspection Panel on September 23rd. In the Notice of Registration the Bank stated “The Requesters claim that although the Project is designed to support “newly independent farmers,” by providing funds to the cotton sector, the Project contributes to the perpetuation of forced labor (both children and adults) in cotton farms. They add that this is in violation of their rights under national law and international conventions prohibiting forced labor. They suggest that the cotton and irrigation systems serve as patronage systems, ensuring loyalty of regional and district authorities to the national administration. The Requesters state that, in this climate, any investment in the agricultural sector sustains the actual system itself and conceivably the forced labor and child labor practices underpinning it.”

On December 9, 2013 the Inspection panel issued an eligibility report that stated that “The Panel’s review of the relevant documentation, the Panel team’s observations in the field, and its discussions with Requesters, affected people and development partners, indicate that these harms as described above can indeed be characterized as serious. Both Requesters and Management also perceive them to be serious but do not agree as to their linkage with the project. It is the Panel’s view meanwhile that a plausible link does exist between the project and these alleged harms, as will be demonstrated below.” The full Panel Report is available here.

For more information, see the notice of registration and the Inspection Panel’s RESP-II page.

Rather than acknowledge the high level of forced child labor in the sector the project is operating the problem, the World Bank has, in its official project related documents, described NGOs as the problem. The 2012 Risk Assessment Framework for the project lists “[e]xternal NGOs may continue raising child labor issue [sic] with the Bank” as a Project Risk. This demonstrates that the World bank does not take the forced child labor issue seriously and sees NGOs attempts to speak up for Uzbekistan’s child laborers as the only labor related obstacle to the project. It also makes it abundantly clear that that any measures related to training farmers on issues of child labor that the World Bank institutes, inadequate as they may be, are nothing more than a public relations effort rather than a genuine attempt to play a constructive role in ending Uzbekistan’s forced child labor problem.

In the management response to the Inspection Panel Request on this project, management stated that “This was language mutually agreed with the Government so that the project could address this issue.” The Inspection Panel, in its Eligibility Report, explicitly addressed the use of such inappropriate targeting of NGOs stating “The Panel also considers that there may be policy compliance issues relating to how the issues of child and forced labor were considered at the time of Additional Financing in 2011. The risk assessment for the Additional Financing identifies the following risk: ‘External NGOs may continue raising child labor issue with the Bank’, and ranks it as moderate. In its Response, Management explains that this was language mutually agreed with the Government so that the project could address this issue. (MR p.32) The Requesters contend, however, that the issue goes well beyond the question of whether it is raised by ‘external NGOs.’ The Panel’s review of harm above elaborated the link between the Project and residual risks of child and forced labour.”

The Uzbek government’s practice of harassing NGOs, arbitrarily detaining human rights defenders, and torturing activists makes the World Bank’s decision to list “external NGOs” as a risk associated with the project particularly worrisome. Doing so puts local activists monitoring the forced child labor issue within Uzbekistan, and transmitting information to international NGOs, in increased danger by telegraphing to the Uzbek government that civil society represents a threat to the project’s success.

Case Study of the International Development Association Funded Uzbekistan Rural Enterprise Support Enterprise Project – Phase II

World Bank Project Page for the Rural Enterprise Support Project – Phase II

World Bank Project Page for the Additional Financing for the Rural Enterprise Support Project – Phase II

Cotton Campaign

Press Release on Formal Complaint filed with World Bank Inspection Panel

Formal Complaint, English

Formal Complaint, Russian

Letter from Civil Society to World Bank regarding proposed new agriculture projects in Uzbekistan