Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan’s long-serving authoritarian ruler Islam Karimov died in fall 2016 following almost 27 years of rule. But his death and the installation of former Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev as president failed to usher in any meaningful improvements in Uzbekistan’s abysmal human rights record. Thousands of people are imprisoned on politically motivated charges. Torture is endemic in the criminal justice system. Authorities continue to crackdown on civil society activists, opposition members, and journalists. Muslims and Christians who practice their religion outside strict state controls are persecuted, and freedom of expression is severely limited. The government forces more than a million adults and some children to harvest cotton under abusive conditions. Authorities still deny justice for the 2005 Andijan massacre, in which government forces shot and killed hundreds of protesters. Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people face deep-rooted homophobia and discrimination.

 

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    The World Bank president, Jim Kim, said last year that he was going to re-orient the institution, declaring, “We have to make growth more equitable.” But the World Bank’s investments in Uzbekistan tell a different story. The Bank has loaned more than half a billion dollars to Uzbekistan’s agriculture sector in recent years, while fully aware that the cotton harvest relies on a massive government program of forced labor and that cotton profits are largely swallowed up by opaque government accounts. It is difficult to imagine how any growth stemming from the World Bank’s current agriculture investments will benefit Uzbekistan’s poor

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    The World Bank’s Investment in Forced Labor

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Forced labor, including children - linked to World Bank

Forced labor, including children - linked to World Bank

Each year Uzbekistan, one of the world’s largest exporters of cotton, forces many people, including children, to work in the cotton fields for weeks in arduous conditions. Nurses and teachers are among those targeted, undermining access to health care and education.

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