The use of forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest is widespread, and violates both Uzbekistan’s domestic law and its international legal commitments. This is the conclusion of a group of human rights defenders who monitored the use of forced child labor in two of the country’s provinces, Kashkadaria and Syr Daria. Their report is based on the 141 interviews that resulted, with students, parents, farm and healthcare workers and local residents.

A major supplier of compact fluorescent light bulbs to General Electric Co. requires many to work a 64-hour week that exhausts workers and violates Chinese labor law. Many workers at the plant in southern China, which is partly owned by GE, have no idea they are producing a product containing toxic mercury, and do not receive training on how to respond to its possible dangers. Those were among the findings of a study overseen by Policy Matters Ohio. The study, conducted in late 2007, found that Xiamen Topstar Lighting Co.

Women comprise the majority of the workforce in many non-traditional agricultural export (NTAE) industries, which international lending and aid agencies espouse as a development solution for rural poor people. In the Peruvian asparagus industry and the Colombian cut-flower plantations, however, women workers endure unsafe and substandard conditions.