| Health
problems. Not surprisingly,
many children end the cotton campaign in poor health and unable to
make up the weeks they’ve missed at school. Some suffer from
colds, and there were reports this season of two children falling
sick with appendicitis. Tragically, some never return. A Samarkand
human rights organisation has confirmed the deaths of eight children
and university students while picking cotton over the past two years.
Those in charge of the harvest, desperate to hit Tashkent production
targets, are reluctant to send the children to hospital because they
need their labour to hit the state-imposed quotas. A lack of the most
basic medical equipment only adds to the health risk for the youngsters.
To gain their child an exemption from picking, wealthy families will
often bribe local health authorities for a certificate of poor health.
This option, of course, is far out of the reach of ordinary Uzbeks. |
