student competition - win the chance to design a cotton crimes CAMPAIGN t-shirt

Whilst students in the UK are in school, going from lesson to lesson, finishing school and going home to their families, every September and for up to three months, hundred of thousands of children in Uzbekistan, some as young as nine are being forced out of school to pick cotton by hand.

The government of Uzbekistan closes down schools across the country and children, teachers  and other workers are forced to work on the cotton fields with little or no pay. Each child is given a daily quota and can collect up to 50kg of cotton a day. Children who fail to pick enough cotton or those who pick low-quality cotton are punished with beatings, detention or told that their grades will suffer. Children who run away from the cotton fields, or who refuse to work, are threatened with being expelled from school.

The work is dangerous and in 2008 there were at least give reported deaths of children due to poor safety standards and one girl committing suicide after she was reprimanded for not picking her quota of cotton. Children can be left exhausted and suffering from ill-health and malnutrition after weeks of back-breaking work. Older children and those who work on remote cotton farms are forced to stay in makeshift dormitories in poor conditions with insufficient food and drinking water.

This is wrong.

Children should not be taken out of school and forced to work in such conditions. The government of Uzbekistan is breaking international laws on children's rights.

Uzbekistan exports over 850,000 tonnes of cotton each year, making the government over US$1billion each year, but the people of Uzbekistan remain poor. Europe is the biggest market for Uzbek. Despite the European Union condemning the use of child slavery in cotton picking in Uzbekistan, the EU continues to give preferential import duties (they do not have to pay as high a tax on cotton imported to the EU market as other countries) to Uzbek cotton.

This is also wrong as the European Union is breaking its own rules which state that trade benefits should be withdrawn from countries with reported human rights violations.

URGENT ACTION FOR students across EUROPE

Anti-Slavery International is calling on the European Union to take action against the government of Uzbekistan by removing trade benefits whilst the government continues to force children out of school to pick cotton.

We need UK students to support the rights of children in Uzbekistan by collecting as many signatures as possible to help us reach our goal of 10,000 signatures to present to the European Union.

Please download the petition and get everyone in your class, school, college, youth group, or Sunday school to sign it and return to Anti-Slavery International by 30 November.

WIN THE CHANCE TO DESIGN A CAMPAIGN T-SHIRT

The school or youth group that collects the most signatures will win the chance to design the  Cotton Crimes campaign t-shirt, which will be printed and worn by Anti-Slavery staff and young people handing the petition to the European Union.  The winning school will also receive t-shirts, a goodie bag and have an Anti-Slavery staff member deliver a special presentation to the school.