Unlike all previous years, during the first ten days of the cotton picking period, forced mobilization for the cotton harvest in 2018 does not appear to be on a massive scale.

Employees of educational and medical institutions have not been recruited to collect cotton. However, reports by UGF monitors, eyewitness accounts, and publications in the independent press indicate that local authorities are still coercing employees of various public and private organizations throughout the country to go to pick cotton or hire a collector in their place.

At a conference call on September 5, Prime Minister Abdullah Aripov announced that 2.6 million pickers would be involved in the cotton harvest in 2018 and would consist of more than 26,000 detachments of “voluntary laborers”.

In this chronicle, we present publications from the press, social networks, and messages received via UGF’s Telegram account.


Download the CHRONICLE OF FORCED LABOR 2018, Issue 2 here