Turkmenistan’s cotton industry has long been marred by allegations of forced labor, particularly involving children. This was one of the issues raised by the Committee while Turkmenistan was reviewed under the Convention of the Rights of the Child. While the government has formally prohibited the use of minors in cotton harvesting since 2005 and has recently categorized such work as “harmful and dangerous”, the reality on the ground remains a stark contrast.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Government of Turkmenistan have developed a roadmap for cooperation between 2024 and 2025. The Roadmap has not been made public by the government on the website of any government agency.
The report by the Cotton Campaign to the Committee on the Rights of the Child highlights the context:
To ensure that child labour in the harvest is effectively eliminated and the reforms are sustainable, the Government of Turkmenistan should not address child labour in isolation, but as intrinsically linked to and driven by the system of state-imposed labour.
The eradication of child labour in the harvest therefore requires robust reforms to end the broader system of state-imposed forced labour of adults, including via an emphasis on enabling fundamental rights such as freedom of association and freedom of expression.
The Cotton Campaign notes the absence of benchmarks against which implementation progress can be measured and lack of complaint mechanism:
The Roadmap includes no benchmarks against which implementation progress can be measured, nor does it acknowledge or incorporate measures to address the broader repressive environment in which the state-imposed.
The Roadmap does not require the Government to take measures to ensure that citizens raising complaints about forced labour are protected against potential negative consequences such as intimidation or retaliation by Government officials or those acting on behalf of the Government.
Child poverty
Children are not forced by the government per se, but rather by economic necessity. Turkmenistan still has not set a national poverty line, and it does not collect and publish disaggregated poverty-related statistics, including data on child poverty. However, UNICEF estimates that 4% of children in Turkmenistan live in extreme food poverty, while another 27% live in moderate food poverty (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Percentage of children living in severe child food poverty and moderate child food poverty, by country and in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 2016-2022
Source: UNICEF 2024 I Child Nutrition Report 2024.
Governance
As the Committee on the Rights of the Child noted, there is still no special government body responsible for coordinating and implementing Turkmenistan’s obligations under the Convention. There is no necessary human, technical and financial resources to operate effectively. The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population, which is one of the key institutions in charge of preventing the use of forced labor, does not publish any relevant information and data. No government agency responds and addresses issues being raised by the independent news organizations and civil society organizations.
The Roadmap for Cooperation outlines several key objectives, including:
- Preventing the use of forced labor by developing a clear framework prohibiting and punishing any practices of mobilization or recruitment or payment established at the central level.
- Preventing child labor by revising the list of jobs, professions, and positions with harmful and hazardous working conditions to include cotton picking and ensuring that children under the age of 18 are prevented from being involved in cotton harvesting.
- Implementing awareness-raising campaigns on the prevention of mobilization and the use of child labor, targeting local public authorities, social partners, and the general public.
- Promoting and setting fair and decent wages for cotton pickers to incentivize voluntary cotton picking.
- Conducting ILO observations to monitor the implementation of public policy measures and working conditions during the cotton harvest.
- Providing technical assistance to Turkmenistan to improve and harmonize national legislation with ratified ILO conventions.
- Enhancing the prosecution of individuals and public officials found guilty of forced mobilization or extortion in connection with cotton harvesting.
- Implementing broader reforms to prevent the risks of mobilization and child labor, promote social dialogue in cotton production, and conduct studies on the impact of water scarcity and climate change on cotton production.
