Case study - The need for child impact assessments

Introduction

Forced child labor in the Uzbek agriculture sector, primarily in the harvesting and weeding of cotton, Uzbekistan’s most important cash crop, costs the nation’s children tens of millions of hours of school time annually and exposes the children to serious health and safety risks. The systemic, government orchestrated forced child labor in Uzbekistan has been widely condemned by the International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations (UN) bodies, The European Union (EU), the United States (US), private companies, and a myriad of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

In planning for and approving the Second Rural Enterprise Support Project (RESP II) loan to the government of Uzbekistan, a project which directs funds towards the agriculture sector, the World Bank failed to properly assess and address the issue of forced child labor. The social assessment carried out prior to the approval of the RESP II loan barely dealt with the issue of child labor in the cotton fields and contained a number of inconsistencies and factual errors. Additionally, public World Bank documents relating to the project wholly ignored the fact that child labor in the cotton fields is not incidental or instigated by families or local communities but rather is widespread and orchestrated by the Uzbek government. In the Project Document for the additional financing, published in August 2012, child labor is not listed as a project risk but “[e]xternal NGOs may continue raising child labor issue with the Bank” is considered to be a project risk.

This case study does not provide conclusive evidence that funds from the World Bank financed RESP II project directly support the exploitation of forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields. However, the case study does argue that insufficient attention was paid to the issue of forced child labor and inadequate due diligence was carried out by the Bank before approving this loan. Bank documents indicate that the World Bank sought to prevent child labor only through action at the local farm level, which is wholly ineffectual given that forced child labor is mobilized at the governmental level. It is also the case that the lack of transparency and independent monitoring around the project’s operations makes it impossible for civil society to determine whether funds from the project could be, directly or indirectly, supporting the cotton industry and its use of forced child labor on a mass scale.

The case study thus recommends that the World Bank’s social assessment requirements be strengthened, including by explicitly requiring environmental assessments to specifically assess the unique impacts of a project on children. Additionally, the World Bank should recognize the role that violations of labor rights play in perpetuating poverty and thus adopt a labor safeguard that requires compliance with fundamental ILO conventions. Finally, all monitoring and supervision reports related to the RESP II project should be made publically available on the project website.