The Silk Road of Exploitation

Many of us have heard about the fabled silk road that dates back to B.C. and connected trade routes across Asia to Europe and Northern Africa. In Uzbekistan, farmers who produce silk have followed a long road of exploitation that continues today.

Similar to the country's lucrative cotton industry, the trade in Uzbek silk is controlled by the state. The government dictates what farmers will grow and buys directly from farmers to export their crops. Farmers are required to meet production quotas for their silk or they could face fines, loss of their land leases, or even violence. Payment is often delayed and the wages are too low for families to make a fair living -- even while the state companies that export the silk earn eight times as much as the farmers. The type of production mostly widely used in Uzbekistan is the old-fashioned method of using silkworms, which is an extremely exacting and labor-intensive process. As a result of the painstaking work and the high quotas, farmers are forced to use the labor of their children.

While the government of Uzbekistan denies the use of child labor in the production of its silk, the Associated Press identified children as young as nine involved in this work and noted that many children miss school during the silk harvest.

It is hard for farmers and labor rights advocates to identify and speak out against the abuses when the government continuously cracks down on civil society. For example, one activist interviewed by the Associated Press was jailed for five years on trumped-up charges after speaking with journalists.

Child and forced labor in Uzbekistan's silk industry has been overshadowed by the attention focused on the country's cotton sector, since silk is a much smaller export earner in comparison. But the recent reports of exploitation reveal that the government of Uzbekistan continues to use its control of land and export companies to trap farmers in a cycle of poverty and dependence that leads to the widespread abuse of worker rights. Despite Uzbekistan's decision to ratify the international conventions related to eradicating the worst forms of child labor, the government's policies continue to facilitate egregious labor rights abuses while officials simultaneously deny the exploitation.

Photo credit: Armin Kübelbeck