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Uzbekistan's Children Pick Cotton To Meet State Plan Target By Galima Bukharbayeva
AKHUNBABAYEV, Uzbekistan, Nov 25 (AFP) - Her hair tucked under a colored scarf and a canvas sack slung over one shoulder, Sayera Ashiraliyeva leaned over the rows of waist-high cotton as her children straggled behind her. Ashiraliyeva did not have the luxury to even wish that her children (aged 9 to 13) were in school rather than helping to harvest cotton in the central Asian republic. After all, the family has to eat and buy winter clothing and there's a state plan to fulfill, she said.
For the ex-Soviet republic of 24 million people, the second largest cotton exporter after the United States, the cotton harvest is an important source of hard currency. Some two million people harvested nearly 3.7 million tons of cotton this fall, not far from the state plan of four million tons, an agriculture ministry spokesman said. After last year's disastrous harvest of 3.2 million tons, government officials turned on the pressure for higher output this year, forcing children, university students and the elderly into the fields to meet the state plans. "In our village there is not a single family that does not gather the cotton. I think it's the same in other cotton-growing regions," Ashiraliyeva said. "When the people from the ministry count how many people harvest cotton, they often don't notice that next to us work our children and sometimes the elderly." Ahiraliyeva's village leader, Ashirmat Karimov, said that without the help of every family member, the village would not be able to meet the state plan set by the government for the national harvest. "We need to fulfill the plan as the pressure on us from the center is very strong," he said. Across the semi-desert Central Asian republic, university students are pulled out of classes each fall to pick cotton. Those who wish to study risk expulsion from their universities or institutes. Having been criticized by international human rights organizations for sending children into the cotton fields, Uzbek officials hotly deny that the country is breaking its own child labor laws. "We did not force students into the cotton fields, but there were cases when the students themselves asked to go to the fields and we gave permission," said Shaukat Kurbanov, deputy minister of education. In the poverty-stricken rural areas across the republic, there is also a financial incentive for all family members to harvest cotton as jobs are scarce and families need the two dollars a day a top picker can earn, Karimov said. More than 75 percent of the cotton crop was gathered by hand from 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of cotton fields sown this year. Combines, which can harvest up to 20 tons per day, are scarce, and in Akhunbabayev, several farms share one combine, Karimov said.
To boost the pickers' incentive, the government this year began paying wages every five days, rather than waiting until the end of the harvest or not paying at all, Karimov said. Collective farm chairman Kurban-Ali Dzhurayev said he fulfilled the state plan thanks to the improved payment methods. "My collective farm and the republic fulfilled the plan because the people are interested in working for money and for the sake of their families," he said
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