Femnet e.V.

The Government of Uzbekistan operates a system of forced labour which has been estimated to coerce approximately one million people annually into participating in the cotton harvest. Following courageous reporting, activism, and whistleblowing, the Uzbek government has committed at the highest levels to eradicating forced and child labour from the cotton sector. One of the two crucial annual reports that both measures incidences of forced and child labour in the cotton sector, and attempts to diagnose strengths and weaknesses in Uzbekistan’s reform effort is produced by the International Labour Organization (ILO) through its third-party monitoring unit stationed in Tashkent. Established through a Multi-Donor Trust Fund by the World Bank, with support from the European Union, the United States and Switzerland, the unit has produced three annual monitoring reports since 2015. Following serious criticism of the third-party monitoring methodology, ethicality and accuracy by civil society, the first author of this evaluation was invited by the ILO’s Chief Technical Adviser to review the 2017 cotton harvest report. To conduct the review, benchmarks drawn from the international methodological literature and the ILO’s own monitoring manual were employed. Once applied serious breaches were identified. A series of questions prompted by the review’s initial findings was sent to the ILO’s third-party monitoring unit for clarification. No response has been received. 

Among the greatest concerns raised during the review was a lack of explicit reference in the 2017 harvest report to the vulnerability of participants who may be victims of state-organised labour, the special sensitivities this prompts for research, or the complexities associated with conducting accurate fieldwork in a deeply authoritarian country where surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture, and repression are lived realities for citizens. 

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Kinderarbeit kann unsichtbar in jedem Kleidungsstück oder Handtuch aus indischer Baumwolle stecken, denn Indien gehört zu den wichtigsten Baumwollproduzenten und -exporteuren weltweit. Wer Textilien und Bekleidung ohne Kinderarbeit anbieten (oder konsumieren) will, muss deshalb auch der Frage nachgehen, unter welchen Bedingungen das Saatgut produziert wurde, aus dem dann später die Baumwollfaser gewonnen und verarbeitet wurde.

SÜDWIND und der indische Partner CLRA (PRAYAS) führten Ende des Jahres 2017 eine Befragung in Gujarat durch, um das derzeitige Ausmaß der Kinderarbeit zu erfassen. Dabei wurden drei separate Erhebungsbögen zur Befragung auf den Farmen, der ArbeiterInnen und der Haushalte in den Dörfern erstellt.

Die konkreten Untersuchungsergebnisse:

• Bildungsniveau: Rund ein Drittel der Kinder und Jugendlichen hat nie eine Schule besucht.
• Arbeits- und Lebensbedingungen auf der Farm: Alle Kinder berichteten von mindestens acht Arbeitsstunden pro Tag, die deutliche Mehrheit arbeitetet sogar regelmäßig zehn Stunden täglich. Qualitative Interviews mit Kinderarbeiter_innen zeigen, dass körperliche Übergriffe am Arbeitsplatz bei Kindern besonders häufig vorkommen.

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The 24th of April 2018 marked the five-year anniversary of the Rana Plaza textile factory disaster in Bangladesh. Numerous multinational textile companies sourced goods from the production in this building, among them a range of companies headquartered in the EU. Five years after the Rana Plaza disaster, to what extent have EU textile companies integrated respect for human rights throughout their operations? Are EU companies carrying out robust human rights due diligence throughout their supply chains to prevent the next ‘Rana Plaza’?

This briefing explores these questions by laying out the main challenges and opportunities in the EU textile sector. Based on data collected by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre over the last seven years on over 170 allegations of negative human rights impacts, this briefing sheds light on the key human rights issues, the scale and geographical dispersion of alleged abuses, and the quality of the responses from EU textile companies to these allegations. It also shares lessons from key legal cases involving EU textile firms where alleged victims sought access to remedy. 

The briefing concludes with recommendations for EU policy-makers and decision-makers, as well as to companies, to overcome the existing challenges to respect and protect human rights in the EU textile industry and its supply chains. A key problem at present is the lack of coordination among member states on how to tackle these issues. By surveying the scale of the abuses, the lack of access to remedy for victims, and identifying the gaps, challenges and opportunities, the briefing emphasizes the need for an EU-wide homogenous set of legislation on human rights responsibilities for EU textile companies.

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Of the 40 million people trapped in modern slavery today, 70 percent of them are women and girls. Every day across the globe, millions of women and girls are used, controlled and exploited for commercial or personal gain. They are trafficked into the sex industry, kept in servitude as domestic workers in private homes, forced to work in exploitative conditions in factories and bonded into agricultural labour. They suffer terrible violence and are denied their basic rights and freedoms.

Our report, “Her freedom, her voice: Insights from the Freedom Fund’s work with women and girls “, draws on insights from our last four years working in countries with a high burden of slavery. The report identifies promising approaches to tackle this scourge, and highlights priorities for further research and investment.

The Freedom Fund has sought to identify and invest in the most effective frontline efforts to eradicate slavery. Across ‘hotspots’ in Ethiopia, India and Nepal we are supporting frontline NGOs to tackle the risks and vulnerabilities that communities face, including the specific vulnerabilities faced by women and girls. From building rights awareness and keeping girls in school, to opening up new economic opportunities and improving conditions in the workplace, our local partners are working to help women and girls protect themselves from slavery, address the root causes of their exploitation, recover from trauma, prosecute those who abuse them and activate government to take responsibility. 

Globally, more research and sharing of knowledge is needed on the most effective frontline strategies to address the gender dimensions of slavery. In an effort to contribute to this knowledge, this report draws together lessons from Freedom Fund-supported interventions to date.

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Innerhalb eines studentischen Projekts der Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz in Kooperation mit dem Tierra – Eine Welt e.V. (Ulrike Kauf & Ulrike Rosemann) konzipierten und entwickelten 13 Studierende innerhalb von 11 Monaten eine Wanderausstellung in Form eines Kleiderschranks.

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