Cotton picking 08

This article over at RFE/RL is another attack on Central Asian governments’ continued use of child labor in the cotton industry. It does a fair job of spreading the fact that Uzbekistan isn’t the only offender, merely the greatest by virtue of having the largest cotton crop. Richard Coyle, Wal-Mart’s senior director of international corporate affairs, told RFE/RL that the company is actively engaged in talks with the Uzbek government on the issue. “Wal-Mart has instructed its supply base to remove Uzbek cotton,” Coyle said. “We’re doing this in order to effect change in Uzbekistan, where there are significant amounts of children forced to work in the cotton fields to harvest the cotton.” Fellow Central Asian cotton producers Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan halted the use of child labor in the 1990s, while Turkmenistan adopted a law... [read full story]