The conditions in which the children work are appalling, and sometimes lead to injury and death. A report released by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) found that both children and parents stated that all tenth and eleventh graders that worked in the fields were forced to stay in barracks. One child called the conditions in the barracks “unbearable.” The report stated that the barracks were, “Unheated, uninsulated field barracks, normally used to store crops and/or farm machinery…filthy and flea-infested, while the biting insects prevented [the children inside] from sleeping. Children were fed mostly bread and turnips.”

The government makes about a billion dollars in profit by exporting cotton; most of that money goes directly to the pockets of Uzbekistan’s president, Islam Karimov and his close allies. The children, on the other hand, are lucky to make any money at all from their labor. They are only paid about a dollar a day and their wages are often stolen by corrupt officials.

The Eton 11 case is not the first-time the billionaire business tycoon Tan has been the subject of controversy stemming from the labor policies of one of his companies.  Tan also owns the Philippines Airline (PAL) which been has been involved in a dispute with its employees union, the PALE Employees Association or PALEA, over a plan to lay off nearly 2,600 workers and replace them with outsourced contract workers. In reaction to the very real possibility of a strike by the PALEA the state intervened under the Assumption of Jurisdiction Act placing a ban on the PALEA going on strike, as well as both sides taking actions that would worsen the dispute.

The treatment of women, men, and children who are subjected to forms of slavery and servitude are excluded from the right to bargain collectively under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).  Home health care workers are still excluded from both the minimum wage and overtime laws, and all live-in domestic workers are excluded from overtime pay under federal law. Domestic workers are not to be confused as ‘servants’ or ‘apart of the family,’ they are workers.  Employers frequently recruit children through commercial labor agencies or local vendors with personal connections with these children.