Turkmenistan - August 2024

Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Justice added cotton-picking to the list of occupations prohibited for people under 18, according to a decree uploaded to the Ministry’s website in August. Most of Turkmenistan’s cotton is picked under a state-backed forced labour regime in which tens of thousands of teachers, doctors, state employees and private-sector workers are forced to leave their normal places of work for the cotton fields. While children have not formally been subject to forced labour mandates, they have habitually been included as “replacement pickers” or forced to do so on behalf of a relative who was unable to participate.

Sources: Havli, Ministry of Justice of Turkmenistan, The Cotton Campaign, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty