The Maquila Solidarity Network has joined a multi-stakeholder coalition made up of apparel brands, financial institutions, faith-based investors, public pension funds, shareholder advocates, investor rating agencies, and labour and human rights NGOs who are campaigning to end the use of forced child labour to harvest cotton in Uzbekistan.

As first reported by the UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) in a 2005 report White Gold: the True Cost of Cotton, every fall Uzbek officials shut down schools and send up to 2 million children ages 11 to 17 to the cotton fields along with their teachers.

Instead of using machines to harvest cotton, as is done in other major cotton exporting countries, Uzbekistan's government relies on children and other forced labourers to pick the bulk of the cotton by hand. Children are marshalled to the fields by their own teachers and forced to work for up to 10 hours a day, 7 days a week for up to 2 months under unsanitary and hazardous conditions.

The Responsible Cotton Network urges apparel brands and their suppliers to identify and eliminate Uzbek cotton from the supply chain until such time as the Government of Uzbekistan takes meaningful action to address this problem. It also collectively lobbies governments and international institutions to bring pressure to bear on the Government of Uzbekistan to take immediate and decisive action to end child labour in the cotton fields.

In Canada, MSN is working with the Shareholder Association for Research and Education (SHARE), the Retail Council of Canada and other organizations to build support for the campaign and to lobby Canadian retailers and brands to sign on to the campaign.

• Brands, retailers, manufacturers, investors, trade associations or NGOs that want to get involved in the Responsible Cotton Network should contact the campaign here.
• For other information on the issue, visit the Responsible Cotton Campaign website.

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