Delegation of Cotton Campaign global coalition will be visiting in Uzbekistan from January 29 to February 6, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
According to the Uzbek Embassy in the United States, the delegation will include representatives of the Network of Responsible Purchasers NGO, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Solidarity, the Uzbek-German Forum, and the Monitoring Mission for Labor Rights in Central Asia.
During the visit, the delegation is scheduled to meet with the leadership of the Ministries of Labor, Agriculture, Justice, Investment and Foreign Trade, the UzTekstilSanoat Association, the Confederation of Employers and the Federation of Trade Unions.
A separate meeting is planned with the chairman of the National Commission to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings and Forced Labor, the chair of the Senate, Tanzila Norboeva.
The parties will reportedly touch upon the coalition’s findings on the 2019 cotton harvest and the effectiveness of measures taken to prevent the use of forced labor, the implementation of roadmaps aimed at eliminating factors contributing to forced labor, as well as enhancing interaction with civil society institutions in this area.
The coalition members will also attend the briefing by the International Labor Organization on cotton harvest monitoring provisional results.
The Cotton Campaign is a global coalition of human rights, labor, investor and business organizations dedicated to eradicating child labor and forced labor in cotton production, whose goals are to end the state systems of forced labor in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan’s cotton sectors.
In February last year, the Cotton Campaign agreed to provide a roadmap for lifting the boycott of major US apparel brands and companies with regard to Uzbekistan textile goods. Today, more than 270 industry brands and retailers have signed the Uzbek Cotton Pledge, under which they agreed not to use the Uzbek cotton until forced labor is ended in the country.
The website of Cotton Campaign is still blocked in Uzbekistan.
