German Businesses Should Stop All Investments in Turkmenistan’s Textile Industry
–German Business Associations Event in Blatant Disregard of Systematic Forced Labor–
Düsseldorf/Washington, D.C., June 27, 2023—All German business associations, consultancies, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and supply chain actors must cut ties with Turkmenistan’s textile industry to avoid benefitting or profiting from forced labor, said the Cotton Campaign, a global coalition dedicated to ending forced labor and promoting decent work for Central Asian cotton workers. All cotton originating in Turkmenistan is produced by the state with the systematic and widespread forced labor of hundreds of thousands of teachers, healthcare workers, other state employees, and sometimes children. The call comes as seven German business associations and consulting firms, collectively representing thousands of German companies, are today hosting an event in Düsseldorf to encourage German investments in Turkmenistan, in particular in its textile and oil and gas industries.
The state-imposed forced labor system in Turkmenistan cotton and the government’s severe repression of all civic freedoms make it impossible for international companies to conduct any credible due diligence on the ground to prevent or remedy forced labor in cotton. More broadly, international companies are unable to address labor rights abuses in any sector in Turkmenistan, including gas and oil, because there are no independent trade unions and the government has taken harsh action against anyone who speaks out about human rights violations.
Sourcing cotton products from suppliers in Turkmenistan or from suppliers in third countries that use Turkmen cotton in the manufacturing of these products is in violation of the German human rights due diligence law (“The Supply Chain Act”), which entered in effect in January 2023. Turkey, Pakistan, and Italy are manufacturing hubs using cotton, yarn, and fabric from Turkmenistan and selling goods to major global brands, including brands headquartered or retailing in Germany. Given the state-imposed forced labor situation in Turkmenistan, the appropriate risk mitigation strategy for brands to comply with the Supply Chain Act is to map out their entire textile supply chains, down to the raw material level, and eliminate all cotton originating in Turkmenistan. German mills and finished goods producers must do the same, as Germany itself is a producer of textiles using Turkmen semi-finished cotton products.
On June 20, the Cotton Campaign wrote letters to the leadership of all German co-hosts of the Investment Forum in Düsseldorf—Commit Group, WE! - The Foreign Traders, BVMW, German-Turkmen Forum, IHK, Eastern Committee of German Business (OA), and VDMA— urging them to cancel the event and instead use their engagement with Turkmen stakeholders to pressure the government of Turkmenistan to end its forced labor system. None of the organizations provided a response.
Ruslan Myatiev, director of Turkmen.News, which monitors forced labor in Turkmenistan’s cotton fields, said: “Turkmenistan is one of the most closed and repressive countries in the world. Instead of encouraging investments in Turkmenistan, German business associations and consultancies should in fact protect their members and clients from sourcing Turkmen products and becoming complicit in Turkmenistan’s forced labor system.”
Raluca Dumitrescu, Coordinator of the Cotton Campaign, said: “The German co-hosts of this Investment Forum have failed to conduct even the most basic human rights due diligence in their selection of partners. Encouraging sourcing of textiles from Turkmenistan, as long as Turkmen cotton continues to be produced with state-imposed forced labor, defies national laws governing human rights due diligence and supply chains that bind global brands and retailers, including the Supply Chain Act in Germany.”
Allison Gill, Forced Labor Program Director at Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF), which hosts the Cotton Campaign, said: “The ILO and the Human Rights Committee, among other authoritative bodies, have repeatedly urged the government of Turkmenistan to end its forced labor system. All German supply chain actors, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and government agencies should heed these calls and urge the Turkmen government to end reprisals against independent monitors who document labor conditions in the cotton fields.”
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Contact information
For media inquiries, please contact Raluca Dumitrescu, Cotton Campaign Coordinator at coordinator@cottoncampaign.org.
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 for cotton workers in Central Asia.
Additional Information
Turkmenistan is the tenth-largest producer of cotton in the world and exports cotton lint, yarn, fabric, and finished goods. The government maintains complete control over the cotton production system, which is predicated on the coercion and exploitation of tens of thousands of tenant farmers, public sector employees, and others to produce and harvest cotton for the benefit of corrupt elites.
Key findings of independent monitoring of the 2022 cotton harvest:
Forced labor of public sector employees to pick cotton was widespread and systematic in all regions monitored. Public sector employees were required to pick cotton, hire replacement pickers, or pay money to a supervisor for replacement pickers or other harvest expenses — a “pick or pay” system. Employees were still expected to complete their regular workload, and those present at work had to cover for those sent to the fields.
Child labor was used in the 2022 harvest, driven by poverty and the forced labor system. Some children were paid to work as replacement pickers hired by public sector employees who had to pick or pay; others were sent as replacement pickers by parents or relatives who were forcibly mobilized to pick or pay; and still others joined the harvest to earn money for their families. Children as young as eight were seen picking cotton alongside adults in cotton fields across the country.
Picking assignments could last for days or weeks, and pickers, whether forcibly recruited or not, had to provide their own food, water, and accommodations. At the fields, some workers slept outside, even after temperatures dipped below freezing, to save money on daily transportation costs. Transportation was also dangerous: the assigned fields were often far away, and many suffered hours-long rides in unsafe vehicles on treacherous roads.
Drought, problematic irrigation practices, climate change, and a failure by the government to address environmental concerns led to widespread water shortages, which ultimately lowered crop yields and contributed to long-term environmental damage. Farmers paid the price, in both money and labor, for neglected and unmaintained irrigation systems to meet their state-mandated production quotas.
The Turkmen government has claimed that mechanized harvesting has eliminated the need for hand picking. However, the use of handpicking persists for a myriad of reasons: cotton picked by hand is more valuable; mechanical picking is not appropriate for small plots of land or towards the beginning of the harvest season; and machines are expensive to access, buy, and maintain. Officials mobilize pickers to the fields even when there is little or no cotton to demonstrate their efforts to the harvest. Furthermore, many officials and heads of institutions reap financial benefits through extortion schemes.
Corruption and extortion are endemic to the cotton production system. Money and personal connections determine which farmers receive the best plots of land; essential inputs ostensibly provided for free by the state, such as seeds, fertilizer, and agricultural equipment, are sold off for cash; middlemen take cuts from money designated for replacement pickers; and cotton collection centers routinely cheat farmers of up to 20% of their harvests. No element to the harvest is free of routine financial exploitation.
There is a strong record of reporting and communication from international observers, finding that Turkmenistan has made insufficient progress to end its state-imposed forced labor system in cotton. These include:
2023: The ILO Committee on the Application of Standards’ 2023 Conclusions, which “deplored the persistence of the widespread use of forced labour in relation to the annual state-sponsored cotton harvest in Turkmenistan and the Government’s failure to make any meaningful progress on the matter since the Committee discussed the case in 2016.” and urged the government to take urgent and concrete steps to end forced labor, including by, ”developing, in consultation with the social partners and in the context of the ongoing ILO assistance, an action plan aimed at eliminating, in law and practice, forced labour in connection with state-sponsored cotton harvesting.”
2023: The U.S. State Department 2023 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, which found that “there was a government policy or pattern of forced labor” in Turkmenistan and that “the government continued to direct policies that perpetuated the mobilization of adults and children for forced labor in the annual cotton harvest, in public works projects, and in other sectors in some areas of the country.”
2023: The UN Human Rights Committee’s 2023 Concluding Observations, which expressed concern about “the widespread use of the forced labour of civil servants during the cotton harvest (mainly women) under threat of such penalties as the loss of wages or salary cuts and the termination of employment as well as other sanctions.” and recommended the government to promptly put an end to forced labor in the cotton sector, inter alia, by increasing labor inspections and establishing an effective complaint mechanism for adults and children in forced labor.
2022: The ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations Observation which expressed “deep concern at the continued practice of forced labour in the cotton sector”, and urged the government “to pursue its efforts to ensure the complete elimination of the use of compulsory labour of public and private sector workers as well as students in cotton production.”
2021: The communication of the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences of 30 August 2021 to the government of Turkmenistan, which expressed “deep concern about the working and living conditions of cotton workers, including of children subjected to child labour, in Turkmenistan.” It noted that according to the information received, the government forces tens of thousands of citizens to harvest cotton – all of whom are subjected to forced labor, as they are coerced to working in the cotton fields under threat of dismissal.
2018: The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ 2018 Concluding Observations which expressed concern “about the reported continued widespread use of forced labour among workers and students under threat of penalties during the cotton harvest”, and recommended the government to “strengthen its measures to stop forced labor, including by enforcing existing laws and policies prohibiting forced labor and increasing the monitoring of compliance, in particular in the cotton sector”, alongside ensuring prosecutions and commensurate sanctions for employers violating labor rights, and full reparations for victims.
