"Is child labor in Uzbekistan cotton fields decreasing?" 16 October 2014 

…Uzbekistan is one of the largest cotton exporting countries in the world, but its traditional means of bringing in the annual cotton harvest has been to empty its schools and force children into laboring in the cotton fields. Over the years, efforts have been made to call the nation to account for this practice, and in part because of investor pressure on the corporate management of supply chains by apparel companies, Uzbekistan ratified International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions relating to forced child labor and minimum age in 2008…[A] report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) found that the use of forced child labor in Uzbekistan was undiminished in 2009…A report issued last week by the US Department of Labor…not[ed] “that despite the presence of ILO observers, the Uzbek government mobilized children to pick cotton to meet government-mandated quotas during the 2013 cotton harvest,” according to the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Cotton Campaign. “These findings reinforce the investment community’s serious concern about state-sponsored forced labor in Uzbekistan,” said Bennett Freeman, Senior Vice President for Calvert Investments. “The report presents a call to action to governments, companies and investors to use their leverage to urge the government of Uzbekistan to end the forced labor system of cotton production.”