A letter delivered to the Government of Malawi today calls on leaders to address child labor and modern-day slavery in Malawi’s tobacco industry. The letter calls on land reform and support for efforts to diversify crops to help lift Malawi’s 300,000 tenant farmer families out of poverty. The Tobacco and Allied Workers Union of Malawi (TOAWUM) sent the letter, with a coalition of labor, human rights, and health groups. The full letter can be downloaded below.

October 1 is National Teacher’s Day in Uzbekistan, but many classrooms will be empty as teachers and, in some cases, their students are sent to the fields to harvest cotton. The government of Uzbekistan, as the sole organizer and beneficiary of this forced-labor cotton harvest, could return them to classrooms where they belong.

UPDATE: On August 13th, the State Enterprises Workers’ Relations Confederation (SERC), a Thai union and ILRF ally that had signed this letter, received a response from TPIA that indicated it would not intervene in the court case against Andy Hall, accused Andy of intending to destroy Thailand’s economic system, and implied that companies may pursue further legal action if Andy continues “to behave in this manner.” The full text is available here:

The United States government’s decision to place Uzbekistan in the lowest category of its annual human trafficking report sends a message of solidarity to the well over a million Uzbeks forced to pick the country’s cotton crop, the Cotton Campaign said today.

The ranking is based on Uzbekistan’s massive use of forced labor of children and adults to pick the country’s annual cotton crop.  The Cotton Campaign is a coalition of human rights, labor, investor and business organizations, including human rights groups from Uzbekistan.

The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) is calling for significant changes to the way Western companies source seafood from Thailand in the wake of an investigative report by the Guardian. The article linked shrimp sold by well-known retailers to forced labor and human trafficking on Thai fishing vessels via a shrimp supplier called CP Foods.

ILRF today issued a warning to companies and consumers that Indorama Corporation is currently under investigation for violations of U.S. law related to its operations in Uzbekistan. The investigation included the U.S. Customs preventing a shipment of yarn produced in Uzbekistan by Indorama from entering the port of Los Angeles in October 2013. The U.S. government has listed cotton from Uzbekistan as a prohibited good made by forced child labor since 2009.

As people arrived for The Children’s Place’s annual shareholder meeting this morning, they were greeted with a sobering reminder of the death toll resulting from the company’s failure to properly monitor its supply chain. Members of 99 Pickets, International Labor Rights Forum, and United Students Against Sweatshops lay wrapped in white sheets in the lobby of the company’s headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey.

We, the undersigned, welcome and support the Rana Plaza Arrangement, a  comprehensive and independent framework, consistent with international labour standards,  that will provide the much-needed support for loss of income and medical expenses to the victims, their families and dependents of the Rana Plaza building collapse. A joint approach is the only way to ensure all those who have already lost so much are compensated fully and in a predictable manner.