Hi all,
This week we’re looking at an important regional story — one that I covered for several years: cotton, or “oq oltin”(“white gold”), as Uzbeks call it.
Cotton is not native to the region and requires a lot of water. In that sense, Central Asia — with its water scarcity — is not the ideal place to grow it. This is especially true for the region's two biggest producers: Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the 8th and 14th largest cotton producers in the world, respectively, large parts of which are a desert.
Cotton cultivation has had tragic and long-lasting consequences for the local environment. Fields have been irrigated using water from the region’s two main rivers — the Amu Darya and Syr Darya — through a network of canals, many of which were poorly designed. As a result, between 30% and 70% of the water is lost due to leakage or evaporation. This diverted water once fed the Aral Sea, located between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. But starting in the 1960s, as inflow declined, the lake began to desiccate.
Today in Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea lies 150 km from its former shoreline in Muynak, once a thriving Soviet port. With the sea’s retreat, the town lost its main industries — fishing and water-based trade — and much of its population, as residents left for Tashkent, Kazakhstan, or Russia in search of work.
Chemicals and fertilisers used in cotton production were left behind on the dried seabed, contributing to widespread health issues in local communities, including respiratory illnesses.
Despite this environmental catastrophe, cotton has remained Uzbekistan’s main export product.
Throughout the 1990s and until the rise of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, cotton harvesting was a national endeavour. Every autumn, schoolchildren, teachers, doctors, nurses, civil servants — and even soldiers — were mobilised to pick cotton as unpaid labour.
Those who could afford it would pay professional pickers to take their place. When I first traveled to the cotton fields in 2019, child labour was no longer systemic, and Uzbekistan had stopped forcing healthcare and education professionals to participate.
However, forced labour persisted. State-imposed cotton quotas remained in place, and civil servants, tax officials, and municipal workers were still required to pick cotton or hire others to do so.
The work itself is grueling. Pickers spend hours bent over in the scorching sun, and meeting the daily quota of 50 kilograms per person is virtually impossible for an untrained worker.
Over time, the practice became less common. In 2021, the International Labour Organisation declared that forced labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields was no longer systemic. The Cotton Campaign, which had long called for a boycott of Uzbek cotton, lifted the boycott in 2022.
Notably, forced labour is still widespread in Turkmenistan. According to a recent report by Turkmen News and the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, as of the 2024 harvest, state-imposed forced labour remains both widespread and systematic.
The report acknowledges that the authorities have taken some steps to improve the situation — for example by ending the mobilisation of doctors and teachers — but other public employees, including staff from schools, kindergartens, hospitals, cultural centres, and utility services continue to participate in cotton harvests.
Joining us today is Umida Niyazova, head and founder of the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, who has been monitoring labour conditions in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields for many years.
I spoke with her about her personal journey and why she founded her organisation in Germany, what cotton means to local communities in Central Asia, and the main labour and human rights challenges still facing the industry in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan today.
Hope you enjoy this one.
Have a great end of the week,
— Agnieszka
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