Use of Forced Child Labor in Uzbek Cotton Sector Concerned Korean Assembly

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   Korean Minting and Security Printing Corporation (KOMSCO), a public enterprise, was found to produce the cotton pulp with the cotton harvested by forced child labor. During the Assembly Inspection of Strategy and Finance Committee on October 15th, 2012, two of the members raised the use of forced child labor issue in Uzbekistan by KOMSCO’s investment in Uzbekistan. KOMSCO set up a joint venture in 2010 registered as Global KOMSCO Daewoo (GKD) to produce the cotton pulp, which is raw material of security paper.

However, the cotton is harvested with forced child labor in Uzbekistan; during the harvest season, all the school are closed and children were sent to the cotton field and forced to pick up cotton more than eight hours a day. Horrible working condition was also revealed such as contamination of air by chemical dust, lack of drinking water.

As a member state of ILO and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Korea has obligations to regulate and guarantee fundamental rights of the child, and take legislative, judicial and administrative actions.

It is known that many of the western countries are already aware of such exploitation of child labor force and banned the trade of Uzbekistan cotton and the goods made of the Uzbekistan cotton. In fact, Finnish textile company Marimekko, large U.S distributor Wal-mart, UK company Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Target, GAP and others boycotted Uzbekistan cotton.

Besides use of forced child labor, KOMSCO was criticized for failure of investment. Though KOMSCO has invested 7.15 million dollars in this project, the actual production only amounted to 13% of 4,500 ton, and this year, there will be only 20% of production out of the original expectation. GKD started with 12 million dollars, but has lost 3 million dollars and accumulated lost is expected to amount to 6.42 dollars.

On the other hand, it is identified that GKD has purchased the cotton of 6,461 tons in 2011 and 1,820 tons during the first half of 2012.

Assemblyman Yun said “Suppose that a child can produce 20 kilograms per day, 6,461 tons are the amount achieved when 10,768 children pick up cotton for a month” and pointed out that “The fact that public enterprise running the business with cotton produced by exploiting children is a serious defame of national image”.

Yun added, “KOMSCO has lack of financial capacity to invest in such dangerous operation when it has debt of 111.9 billion won in 2011” and urged to withdraw the operation in Uzbekistan.

On this issue, KOMSCO said “we are running operation with positive intentions to creating local job opportunity and raising industries by passing down cotton pulp production technology”, and explained that “GKD has started manufacturing since November 2011 but there is no record of the cotton supplied to public operation.

Forced child labor issue was also highlighted during the Assembly Inspection of Strategy and Finance Committe on October 24th. The Minister of Strategy and Finance Committe commented on the investment loss and the child labor that “we should not carry on the acts that violate universal values, child exploitation and child labor,” but “whether to continue or not the ongoing operation should be decided regarding geopolitical value of Uzbekistan.”

On the question asking reason to grant Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) loan to an autocratic state like Uzbekistan, he answered “it is not desirable to publicly announce another state an autocracy”; and “we need practical diplomacy with Uzbekistan when it is strategically important state”.

(Original Articles in Korean: Joongang Ilbo, Yonhap News, Hangyeorae, Pressian, Sisa News)

(Edited and Translated by Jae-Yoon Lee, APIL intern)