Human Rights In Uzbekistan

Achievements and tasks for the future

- Eldor Tulyakov

Uzbekistan has been carrying out reforms on the principle of human interests above all else and ensuring the proper protection of human rights. Thus, the country has identified human rights protection as one of the priority areas.

The analysis demonstrates that work in this area has a systemic character. The country has made a breakthrough in ensuring socio-economic, civil, and political rights.

First of all, the government carried out outstanding work to eradicate forced and child labor in cotton harvesting campaigns. For many years, it is no secret that these very issues have been a stigma on the international image of Uzbekistan. The government succeeded in close interaction with international organizations (including the ILO) and civil activists to eliminate problems in this area. As such, the government carried out significant structural changes in the agriculture sector. The high political will of the country's leadership played an undoubted role in this. As a result, in its 2020 report, the International Labor Organization announced the end of child and forced labor in the cotton industry of Uzbekistan. According to the organization, the republic has made significant progress in enforcing fundamental labor rights in the cotton fields. The systematic recruitment of students, teachers, doctors, and nurses has wholly stopped. For the first time in ten years of monitoring in cotton-growing regions of Uzbekistan, the Uzbek Human Rights Forum did not record a single case of forced labor.