First EU-Central Asia Summit: EU Should Center Workers In Its Engagement With Uzbekistan And Turkmenistan

(Washington, DC, April 3, 2025) The Cotton Campaign calls on the EU to emphasise in its engagement with the governments of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan that achieving sustainable cotton and textile industries first and foremost requires protection and respect for fundamental labor rights. The call comes as the EU holds talks with officials from Central Asian countries to deepen cooperation at the first EU-Central Asia Summit on April 3-4, 2025 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. In advance of the Summit, the Cotton Campaign sent a letter to high level EU officials urging them to center workers’ rights, especially freedom of association and collective bargaining rights, in their engagement with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan during these meetings and beyond. In Uzbekistan, ensuring that workers can exercise their rights is essential to eliminate ongoing forced labor risks and meet international labor standards necessary to attract responsible sourcing by global brands and retailers. In Turkmenistan, where the government has taken some preliminary steps towards addressing the use of systemic state-imposed forced labor in the cotton harvest, an emphasis on labor rights and worker empowerment is vital to ensuring meaningful reforms that address the root causes of forced labor.

“Freedom of association and collective bargaining rights are the foundation of workplace democracy and key to stable supply chains. The EU should use the Summit to reinforce that protecting these rights is essential to conform to ILO standards and best practices for global supply chain governance,” said Raluca Dumitrescu, Senior Coordinator of the Cotton Campaign. "In Uzbekistan, despite the elimination of systemic state-imposed forced labor in the cotton harvest, restrictions on these rights contribute to ongoing risks of forced labor and other violations in the sector. On the other hand, ensuring that workers can meaningfully exercise these rights would provide brands and retailers  with the assurances needed to begin sourcing cotton products in accordance with their requirements under laws governing human rights due diligence and supply chains in their countries of import—including across the EU."

In its letter to the EU, the Cotton Campaign highlighted specific messages the EU should convey to the governments of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, which reflect the objectives set by EU trade policy and recent legislation governing human rights due diligence and imports, including the EU Forced Labor Regulation and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. To further advance its goals to end forced labor, support democracy building, and promote sustainable development in the region, the EU should complement this engagement by concrete actions to condition trade and investment opportunities to tangible progress on workers’ rights, the Cotton Campaign said.

In the three years since Uzbekistan eliminated systemic state-imposed forced labor in the annual cotton harvest, forced labor risks still remain and the government has retained a coercive role over farmers and the annual cotton harvest. Intimidation and pressure on workers seeking to organize and bargain for better working conditions, as well as on independent labor monitors reporting on labor rights violations, have escalated. In November 2024, the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) filed a complaint against the Uzbek government with the ILO Committee of Freedom of Association. 

In March 2025, the EU Commission conducted its second monitoring mission to Uzbekistan, as part of its review of Uzbekistan’s compliance with human and labor rights Conventions under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+). The mission noted "concerns" about "trade union practices" and "examined labor conditions in the agriculture sector." The Cotton Campaign calls on the Commission to ensure that its report captures that a worsening climate for human rights activism creates a chilling effect on workers’ rights and independent monitoring in the cotton and textile industries, and outlines specific violations of ILO fundamental Conventions and concrete benchmarks Uzbekistan must meet to continue benefiting from preferential market access.

In Turkmenistan, in an unprecedented signal of opening, the government accepted engagement with the International Labor Organization (ILO) and signed two consecutive Roadmaps for Collaboration, allowing the ILO to conduct monitoring of the cotton harvest, although with challenges and limitations. Despite this, Turkmenistan continues to use systemic state-imposed forced labor during the annual cotton harvest and severely represses all civic freedoms, which are crucial to combating forced labor and ensuring sustainable reforms. Workers have no independent trade unions to protect them from forced labor at workplaces; on the contrary, unions, which are not independent or representative, are often involved in the forced labor system by organising the collection of money from state employees to hire replacement cotton pickers. The Cotton Campaign calls on the EU to build on the European Parliament’s 2019 resolution that conditioned a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Turkmenistan on meeting concrete human rights benchmarks, and further increase pressure on the Turkmen government to end its forced labor system.

"The cotton sector in Turkmenistan is in large part reliant on the forced labor of state employees and the coercion of farmers", said Ruslan Myatiev, director of Turkmen.News, an independent media and human rights organization, which also monitors forced labor in Turkmenistan’s cotton fields. "The Turkmen government accepted engagement with the ILO, which is good news. However, the government is yet to take concrete steps to address the root causes of forced labor and the EU plays a key role in increasing pressure for reform. As Turkmenistan seeks to intensify engagement, the EU should condition trade and investment opportunities to the elimination of state-imposed forced labor in cotton production and the creation of an enabling environment for labor rights."

"As the largest trading block, the EU is uniquely positioned to leverage market access to increase pressure for change. To do this effectively, the EU's engagement with the governments of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan should complement and advance the EU’s business and human rights agenda," said Sian Lea, Business and Human Rights Manager at Anti-Slavery International. "The EU Summit delegation should be very clear about the obligations that brands and retailers importing into the EU have to ensure there is no forced labor in their supply chains, and that enabling rights and worker empowerment are critical to end forced labor and achieve decent work. "

The EU should also strengthen coordination across member states and agencies to ensure that no European companies profit from forced labor or other forms of exploitation in the cotton sectors of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. For example, because of the use of state-imposed forced labor, imports of products made with Turkmen cotton are banned in the US and as the application of the EU Forced Labor Regulation unfolds, they will soon be prohibited across the EU. However, the objectives of these laws and the EU’s diplomatic efforts are undermined by European suppliers and brands importing products made with forced labor Turkmen cotton and Italian and German machine manufacturers facilitating Turkmen cotton products to enter global markets by contributing to the development of textile production in Turkmenistan.  

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The Cotton Campaign is a coalition of human and labor rights NGOs, independent trade unions, brand and retail associations, responsible investor organizations, supply chain transparency groups, and academic partners, united to end forced labor and promote decent work in cotton supply chains in Central Asia.