DUSHANBE, September 5, Asia-Plus — Beginning from this academic year, no one senior pupil at secondary schools or student at higher educational institution will be sent to cotton plantations, Mr. Zamon Alifbekov, Adviser to the Tajik Minister of Education, remarked this in his interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, although sending schoolchildren to cotton plantations is prohibited by the RT Law “On Education”, local authorities in Sughd and Khatlon provinces were sending all higher educational institutions and senior pupils at secondary schools [teenagers aged 14 to 17] to cotton plantations.
“This issue is under a special control of the head of state and the education minister,” said Mr. Alifbekov, “Now use of children’s labor during the cotton harvest will be punished by law, right up to dismissal of heads of educational institutions.”
In the meantime, experts says that children harvest 40 percent of Tajikistan”s cotton. Although Tajik legislation prohibits child labor, children harvest up to 40 percent of the cotton for paltry wages and to the detriment of their education and health. Parents also state that the cotton harvest negatively affects their children’s health. Experts note that use of child labor has become an easy settlement of a problem of shortage of manpower during the cotton-picking campaign.
