On “World Day Against Child Labour” the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) has asked retailers to guarantee that child labour is not used to produce their cotton.

The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) is dedicated to creating, implementing and building solutions where they are needed most - training local people and communities who are directly affected to investigate, expose and combat environmental degradation and abuse.

There is a need to clean the cotton industry, the EJF said.

Children as young as seven years are employed or rather used by the cotton producers on the field. The children can not go to school, are exposed to risks from dangerous machinery and hazardous chemicals used on the crops. In addition to being denied enjoying their childhood they are subjected to all this with little or no pay.

The world cotton production is worth US$30 billion which is mainly used for cloth production.

In Unbekistan which is the second largest cotton exporter in the World the schools do not open in the harvest season. About 2,00,000 children are working in the field to pick cotton. They are punished by scolding, beatings or detention if they fail to meet their daily quota or pict poor quality cotton.

It’s time for consumer action and people should ask their retailer to guarantee their cotton is not produced by children. Consumers should not buy from those retailers who do not gurantee about this.

Europe imports almost US$350 million’s worth of cotton from Uzbekistan each year. The cotton may be produced by exploiting the children.

Retailers have a duty to know the history of the products they sell through a transparent supply chain that would enable them to help prevent this human exploitation, and guarantee child labour had not been used in their production.

The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) is dedicated to creating, implementing and building solutions where they are needed most - training local people and communities who are directly affected to investigate, expose and combat environmental degradation and abuse.

EJF employs the latest video equipment and technologies to document both the problems and solutions, working through the media and creating the momentum for effective action.