Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-12-14-Speech-3-485-000"
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"en.20111214.30.3-485-000"2
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"Mr President, the European Parliament has been asked to give its consent to a Protocol amending the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Uzbekistan so that the textile trade can benefit from an appropriate legal framework.
I think that we have managed to achieve a balanced report, through which we call on the Council to support the request submitted by the ILO to Uzbekistan to accept a high-level tripartite observer mission, enjoying full freedom of movement, in order to assess the implementation of the ILO conventions.
Finally, I would like to mention the petition launched by the Anti-Slavery organisation, requesting trade preferences to be halted. Last week, I had the opportunity to meet some students from Eastbourne who came to the European Parliament along with members from Anti-Slavery to ask the European Union to protect children’s rights. I must tell you, Mr President, that once this debate is over, I will be handing in a petition making this request containing 13 379 signatures.
This is missing at the moment as textiles were a sensitive issue in the negotiations during the 1990s for the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements with the countries of the former Soviet Union. The protocol being discussed wishes to include textiles in this agreement so that legal certainty is guaranteed for European Union exporters.
However, over and above this general context, there is still a serious problem which the European Parliament cannot fail to address: accusations that forced child labour is used in the cotton fields in Uzbekistan. This is the main reason why, following the debates in the Commission, we decided to draft this interim report.
Uzbekistan is the world’s fifth largest producer of cotton and its third biggest cotton exporter. According to several reports from the Initiative Group of Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan, produced in partnership with the International Forum for Civil Rights, as well as from the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights and the NGO Anti-Slavery International, the political and economic systems in Uzbekistan are controlled by the state. Cotton is produced on private farms, but the harvested cotton must be handed over to state-owned firms for a price dictated by the State.
According to the same reports, government employees mobilise children as a cheap source of labour during the cotton harvest. The estimates range from 200 000 to 2 million children aged 9-15 years old. The State dictates the quotas for cotton, which must be fulfilled. Schools are obliged to send children out into the cotton fields. Administrative employees and teachers who refuse to comply risk losing their jobs. The families of children who refuse to work are pressurised by the police and the prosecution service. The authorities threaten to withhold pensions and social benefits, to cut off electricity, gas and water supplies and even to arrest, imprison and charge members of non-compliant families. Many schools, particularly those in agricultural regions, are closed from September until November or December. As a consequence, the children involved miss two to three months of school every year.
The Uzbek Government denies that these problems exist and states that this is a family farm activity. Continued allegations of forced child labour obliged the Uzbek Government to ratify in 2008 the two ILO conventions on child labour, after which it approved the National Action Plan to implement them.
Over the years, many international organisations such as the UN or ILO have expressed concerns regarding the use of forced child labour in Uzbekistan. However, the Uzbek Government does not allow independent international observers in the country during the harvest season to verify the implementation of the ILO conventions.
As rapporteur, I tried to meet all the parties involved in this agreement. I regret that it was not possible to have an exchange of views in the Committee on International Trade with Uzbekistan’s ambassador to the EU, even though he has been repeatedly invited. I think that he could have portrayed to us the situation in his country. Unfortunately, even the bilateral meeting we managed to have with the ambassador was not enlightening.
On the other hand, I would like to thank my colleagues because they showed that they were receptive to the concerns expressed by the European Parliament, and I thank them for their valuable contribution to the final version."@en1
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