The New York Times has an article about the corrupt cotton system in Tajikistan. Reading the article reminded me of how, in Uzbekistan, school children are called from classes for one two two months each fall during the harvest to pick cotton. Although from an outside perspective this seems like blatant forced labor, the Uzbeks with whom I spoke viewed this labor as more or less “the usual.” The Environmental Justice Foundation has a good primer on the Uzbek cotton issue.

The sad part of this story is that the wealth obtained from the cotton is not distributed among those who cultivated it. Instead, corrupt officials and businessmen rip-off the local farmer at every step of the way, thus establishing a sharecropper system. Farmers are left with little choice but to acquiesce to the demands of the corrupt kleptocracy. In a country with such good people, it’s a shame that the wealth created by cotton is not used to modernize villages and invest in education. This system is just one of many used to keep the people powerless and constantly on the edge.