Episode
Transforming Uzbekistan's Cotton Industry
- Podcast
- Transforming Tomorrow
- Published
- Mar 30, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2224
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://pod.co/transforming-tomorrow/my-life-in-forced-labour
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Summary
There is a big difference between doing things we might not like, being assigned a task at work not to your particular liking, and being forced into a job by your government. And there is just a radical a difference between reading about forced labour in a textbook and speaking with someone who had experienced it first-hand. Farmon Asadov is now a PhD researcher at Lancaster University, but before that he spent time as a forced labourer within Uzbekistan’s cotton industry. Farmon is here to tell us about his experiences in a country that only moved away from widespread forced labour in the last decade. He also enlightens us the history of his country, why cotton has been such an important pillar of the Uzbek economy, and the intensive labour system that involved two million people being corralled by the government for each year’s harvest. But most importantly, Farmon tells us how as a student he was sent to remote camps to carry out the cotton harvest, receiving little to no reward, and all framed as being his patriotic duty. We hear about the long hours of hard labour in intense heat, the sometimes-impossible quota targets they were set, and the punishments for not meeting them. We discover the forces that brought about change to the state-imposed forced labour system, the influence of major corporations in the change, and how Uzbekistan tried to get around sanctions when the world clamped down on exports. We find out how the cotton industry works now; how new markets have been grown; how supply chains have been built with international support; and how quickly new generations have no memories of the old system. Plus, do your clothes have a label saying ‘Made in Uzbekistan’? Chances are you’ll be rooting around your wardrobes to find out. Meanwhile, Jan is already pla…