The national monitoring of working conditions for cotton pickers in the 2026 season will begin in Uzbekistan on September 25 and continue until October 31. The main objective of this monitoring is to prevent cases of child and forced labor in agricultural fields. Information about the start of this initiative was presented on September 18 at a briefing held by the Federation of Trade Unions of Uzbekistan.
The monitoring group consists of 65 specialists, with five participants from each region. These specialists represent industry trade unions, Federation labor inspectors, as well as members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the National Association of Non-Governmental Non-Profit Organizations.
The inspection process is organized as follows: on Mondays and Saturdays at 7:00 AM, group leaders receive random GPS coordinates of three locations in their region and travel to conduct inspections by 9:00 AM. Daily data and photo reports are sent to the federation. Additionally, starting from September 15, a 24-hour duty regime has been introduced at the federation and its branches for the entire season. Citizens can report labor rights violations via the short number 1092, through the Federation of Trade Unions website, or by using the organization's Telegram bot.
To inform the population across the country, 200 banners have been placed, and plans are underway to prepare another 10,000 posters and distribute 200,000 leaflets with relevant information.
Bakhtiyor Makhmadaliyev, Deputy Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions, emphasized that the current situation is fundamentally different from the situation in 2020, let alone from ten-year-old figures. He noted that previously there was no administrative or criminal liability for forced labor. However, the administrative code has been tightened, and a special article has been added to the Criminal Code.
According to Makhmadaliyev, the Federation of Trade Unions has not recorded cases of child or forced labor in recent years. Nevertheless, among the identified problems remain issues such as delayed payments, work without contracts, and inadequate working conditions. The continuation of inspections is due to the fact that international structures demonstrate increased confidence in the results obtained by non-governmental organizations.
Katerina Gorbunova, a representative of the Better Cotton Initiative program in Uzbekistan, added that the need for such monitoring will disappear only after mechanization is implemented. The organization certifies over 20% of global cotton and has been conducting its own monitoring of working conditions in Uzbekistan since 2022.
The specialist explained that comparing it with large farms in the USA or Brazil is incorrect: only three people may work on 10,000 hectares there, and monitoring under such conditions is meaningless. The situation changes drastically when 5,000 temporary workers are involved in the same 10,000 hectares.
Gorbunova also noted that the cotton season requires manual harvesting by a significant portion of the workforce. Three or four years ago, about 2 million people were employed annually for cotton picking, and most of them worked informally. Informal employment relations are a general characteristic of agriculture worldwide, and this sector, as a whole, carries a greater risk from a labor law perspective than any other. Therefore, Gorbunova views monitoring not as a punitive tool, but as a way to support workers and a kind of training for farmers, as employers often have a low level of awareness of labor legislation.
The results of last season's monitoring demonstrated the types of violations faced by pickers. In 2025, the Federation of Trade Unions did not find cases of child or forced labor. However, inspectors recorded the following violations: 166 cases of untimely salary payment affecting 8,752 pickers; 227 cases of working without an employment contract involving 9,075 people; and 1,222 pickers in 24 farms and clusters who worked under conditions that did not meet labor and rest requirements.
Bakhtiyor Makhmadaliyev reported that all identified wage arrears have been fully repaid, answering 'Gazeta's' question about the procedure for resolving such disputes. The Deputy Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions specified that inspectors, together with farm management, addressed the issue of unpaid labor for 8,752 pickers, and the debt was liquidated one hundred percent. If a violation is not rectified on site, materials are transferred to the State Labor Inspectorate for fines, and if this does not yield results, the case is sent to the prosecutor's office, which oversees compliance with the law.
Minimum working condition standards are approved annually in August by the Republican Trilateral Commission on Social and Labor Issues, which includes representatives of the government, trade unions, and employers. According to these standards, field stations must have showers, toilets, hot meals, and clean drinking water.
Last season, the State Labor Inspectorate of the Ministry of Employment and Poverty Reduction conducted its own inspections. Inspectors visited 986 farms and fined 116 officials a total of 397.44 million soms. Through hotline 1176 and the inspection's Telegram bot, 222 appeals regarding payment delays were received, resulting in the return of 1.785 billion soms to the pickers. The overall results of the 2026 season monitoring will be presented in December.