AKIPRESS.COM - An expert of the International Labor Organization praised major cotton exporter Uzbekistan for making tentative progress in moving to eliminate the worst forms of child labor, AFP reported on November 1. 

Harri Taliga, an expert with the UN's labor watchdog based in Uzbekistan, said the Central Asian nation conducted for the first time this year its own monitoring of government-led efforts to eradicate the use of child labor in its cotton fields.

Uzbekistan has handled well its own monitoring of child labor during cotton harvesting, said Taliga, who assists the Uzbek government in its monitoring program.

In 2008, Uzbekistan ratified the watchdog's Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention and approved a national program to eliminate child labor.

Uzbekistan with assistance from the ILO conducted its own monitoring of efforts to eliminate the use of children under 18 to pick cotton following a recommendation from the watchdog this year.

"The monitoring conducted by Uzbekistan with technical assistance from the ILO is the continuation of joint monitoring efforts by Uzbekistan and ILO in 2013," said Taliga.

He said he was happy to learn that many of the recommendations made last year after joint monitoring have already been implemented this year.

Taliga added that the results would be reviewed by ILO experts in Geneva at a later stage.

During this year's cotton harvesting the Uzbek monitoring group identified 49 instances where youths under 18 were present in cotton fields, according to a report on the monitoring results.

The report claimed that 41 of them were picking cotton at their own initiative or the initiative of their parents.

As the result a number of farmers and college directors were fined a total of 12 million soums ($5,000), the report said.

Uzbekistan, the world's fifth-largest cotton exporter, produced 3.3 million tons of cotton this year.