Today is June 12 – a World Day Against Child Labor. Every year, this day focuses on one of the spheres of life that involves a child labor, spheres that are most harmful and disastrous for children’s development. This year the World Against Child Labor is focused on involving child labor in agriculture.

In the developing countries, where the technology is not developed, the agriculture requires a lot of hand work. Therefore, in many third world countries that are mostly dependent on agriculture, the child labor is constantly being used in large scales in crop growing and livestock breeding. As International Labor Organization confirms that agriculture is the greatest sector that involves a child labor.

Worldwide, agriculture is the sector where the largest percentage of working children is found - nearly 70 percent. Over 132 million girls and boys aged 5 to 14 years old often work from sun up to sun down on farms and plantations, planting and harvesting crops, spraying pesticides, and tending livestock.

As agriculture is one of the key sectors of its economy, Uzbekistan heavily depends on it. Uzbekistan is one of the main exporters of cotton in the region to the both western and eastern world. Besides cotton, Uzbekistan also produces and exports vegetables, fruits, grain, and live stock. As a person, who has observed the agriculture in Uzbekistan for a long time, I can tell that the child labor in agriculture in Uzbekistan is heavily used. And it is used very often, almost always.

The child labor usually employed in rural areas, where income of people is based solely on agriculture. Whole year, except for winter time, children have to work in the fields with their adult relatives doing the same backbreaking jobs: planting, cultivating, gathering, etc. The work begins in early March, when it is time to prepare the land to plant cotton, and finishes in late November when the harvest is gathered and the field is empty.

One may ask “How does the government deal with the issue?” Well, that’s a main problem – the government supports the child labor being used in agriculture. Every year, from early September to late November, students and schoolchildren, beginning from 10 years old, have to go out to the cotton fields to help to their region to fulfill the plan in time. Students, who have come from the cities, use old kokhoz buildings to stay, where living conditions are really bad. No one cares about their health. Water usually is brought in special tanks, but when it is late, which happens often due to technical problems, they have to drink dirty water from the water canals that flow by the fields, which are full of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This often causes different sicknesses like diphtheria among the children, whose organisms are weaker than adults.

Another, not less important side of the problem is that it hinders children’s development. It deprives the children of the education they can get in schools. Education is one of the only means that can lift them out of the poverty they are suffering now. During their work in the field, children do not go to school. If you ask teachers about this, they say that they will catch up the curriculum in the winter period. Well, they do “catch up” by slightly learning the information that they missed. Of course, there are a lot of teachers who really care about this problem, but they have no choice. Try to speak against the child labor - you will get your “fired” form the next day. Most people, including me, call this time “a period of silence in schools”, as almost all students and schoolchildren are out in the fields and the schools are almost empty.

Another side of the problem is that it is becoming a part of culture – using child work in field works. Go to the rural area and ask people what they know about the Convention on the Rights of the Child or child labor in general, I am sure that shrugging and odd looks will be what you get as an answer. It is not about illiteracy. People just do not see anything immoral in involving child labor in hard works, because it is a social order that has been kept for centuries. Children, who live in the information vacuum, do not know how their peers live in the developed countries enjoying their rights. Hence, they do not know that their rights are being violated. Even if they know, they cannot go against it, as it is already a part of culture.

International organization like ILO, UN and others should collaborate with such countries on eliminating the involvement child labor in the spheres harmful for the development of children. Children are the future of the nation. Therefore, the tomorrow’s prosperity of the nation - of the country, depends on how we treat our children today. Today is June 12 – a World Day Against Child Labor, so lets call everyone for not to violate children’s rights.