Cotton sustainability programme Better Cotton has launched in Uzbekistan, following around five years of on-the-ground piloting by both Germany’s GIZ development agency and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank.  

The most recent data on the 2021 cotton harvest in Uzbekistan from the International Labour Organization and non-profit groups has confirmed that state-imposed child and forced labour in the form of cotton-picking is now entirely absent from the country’s newly privatised cotton sector. Washington, DC-based body the Cotton Campaign, previously responsible for orchestrating a global boycott of Uzbek cotton, subsequently lifted its pledge against use of the fibre last March.

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