The anti-sweatshop movement at dozens of American universities, from Georgetown to U.C.L.A., has had plenty of idealism and energy, but not many victories.

In August, members of United Students Against Sweatshops picketed a Target store in Washington, to pressure the retailer to stop selling products made by Russell Athletic.

Until now.

By Dan McDougall

The children pick through mountainous piles of waste tobacco and sweep it up with their bare hands into giant bags in the hope of scraping a living. From behind a veil of dust, they stare back at us with bloodshot eyes.

As the wind gathers in a fading dusk, infant siblings strapped to their mothers’ backs wail amid swirling, noxious clouds of tobacco.

An Uzbek rights activist has said he was beaten up after helping the BBC investigate the use of child labour in Uzbekistan's cotton industry.

Bakhtiyar Hamrayev said he was attacked within hours of the story appearing on the BBC News website and radio.

The report found that children as young as 11 were being taken out of school to help pick the cotton harvest.

The government pledged to stop using child labour last year after some Western firms boycotted Uzbek cotton.

By Rustam Qobil

Cotton is big business in Uzbekistan, and a vital source of hard currency in a country which is chronically underdeveloped and where many live below the poverty line.

But last year some Western clothes retailers threatened to boycott Uzbekistan - one of the world's leading cotton producers - if it did not stop using schoolchildren to pick this vital harvest.

As a result, the Uzbeks officially banned the use of child labour, but they now seem to have reneged on their promise, with children as young as 11 or 12 working in the fields.