More than a million people were forced to work on cotton fields in Uzbekistan during last year's harvest season under harsh conditions in which 17 people died, according to a damning report by a rights group.
The report, released by the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights (UGF) on Monday, describes the large-scale mobilization of people into the forced labor program that props up the state's cotton industry, which pours nearly US$ 1 billion per year into government coffers.
Cotton is a major export for the double-landlocked central Asian country, with the government using popular slogans such as, "Cotton is the people's riches!"
UGF reports that working conditions included workers being forced to put in 10-hour days before returning to overcrowded living quarters that often lacked clean water.
Armenian News
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