AKIPRESS.COM - The government of Uzbekistan does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so, according to the 2017 Trafficking in Persons report of the U.S. State Department.
Despite the lack of significant efforts, the government took steps to address trafficking including allowing the ILO to monitor the cotton harvest for child labor since 2013 and for forced labor since 2015, and to publish the results of a survey on labor recruitment practices during the 2014 and 2015 cotton harvests. The government also conducted a substantial campaign to raise awareness of
the prohibition against child labor in the harvest for a third year. Authorities continued to prosecute suspected traffickers involved in transnational cases and fund a rehabilitation center for trafficking victims. Government-compelled forced labor remained widespread during the 2016 cotton harvest. The central government continued to demand farmers and local officials fulfill state-assigned cotton production quotas, and
set insufficiently low prices for cotton and labor to attract a sufficient number of voluntary workers, which led to the wide- scale mobilizations of adult laborers. There were anecdotal reports of the continued use of child laborers in some locations. Attempts to conceal possible labor violations in cotton fields continued; there were several incidents in which provincial officials harassed independent monitors and isolated cases of monitors being detained and questioned. For the first time, in 2016, the government investigated cases of child labor.
Uzbek women and children are subjected to sex trafficking in the Middle East, Eurasia, and Asia, and also internally in brothels, clubs, and private residences. Uzbek men, and to a lesser extent women, are subjected to forced labor in Kazakhstan, Turkey, Russia, United Arab Emirates, and Ukraine in the construction, oil and gas, agricultural, retail, and food sectors.