On 24th May, 2018 it was announced that the US government has banned all imports of cotton goods from Turkmenistan because of child and forced labor in cotton harvesting since the US law prohibits the import of products produced through child or slave labor or by violating labor laws.
“The member of US Cotton Campaign, International Labor Rights Forum and alternative Turkmenistan News suspected that Turkmen government under the threat of punishment of loss of wages and termination of employment, forces the public sector employees to pick cotton”, commented the Crowell & Moring International Trade Group.
Leading global retailers such as H&M, IKEA and several other have said that they were no longer using Turkmen textiles and cotton in their products.
According to the Global Slavery Index of 2016 the countries that have forced their population into labor include Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, China, Uzbekistan, Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Vietnam and Russia.
