Who is responsible for instituting child labour in Uzbekistan?
The exploitation of forced and child labour in Uzbekistan is a deliberate state policy. Compulsory orders sending children to the cotton fields are issued by school administrators who receive unwritten orders from local governments (hokimiyats). Given Uzbekistan’s strictly centralised system of governance and cotton industry management, one can deduce that the orders originate in the central government. Without instructions from Tashkent, it is inconceivable that schools across the country would be shut down for even a single day.
