Uzbekistan, US discuss combating human trafficking and forced labor

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The issue of combating human trafficking and forced labor, human rights issues became an important part of the bilateral agenda of the video conference, in which the Chairman of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis Tanzila Narbaeva, the US Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons John Cotton Richmond and Associate Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs of the Bureau of International Labor Affairs Mark Mittelhauser.

It was noted that in recent years, mutual understanding and trust have been achieved in the dialogue between Uzbekistan and the United States in this direction. This was facilitated by the large-scale reforms carried out in the country as part of the implementation of the Development Strategy in 2017-2021.

So, only for the current year in our country, 17 normative legal acts were adopted. In particular, the relevant laws have introduced amendments and additions to the Code of Administrative Responsibility and the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan, providing for the strengthening of measures of responsibility for child and forced labor.

Taking into account international experience, the Law on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings was adopted in a new edition. Active work is underway to implement international standards into national legislation.

The issues of combating human trafficking and forced labor are closely interconnected with a number of other areas, the main of which is migration. Cooperation of Uzbekistan with the International Organization for Migration has reached a new level after our country joined it as a full member. And with the establishment of the National Commission on Combating Human Trafficking and Forced Labor, the institution of the National Rapporteur on this issue was established.

As a result of the ongoing preventive and educational activities to strengthen the fight against human trafficking, as well as educational work among the population, over the past two years, crimes related to human trafficking have decreased by almost 2 times (2018 - 123, 2019 - 77, 10 months 2020 - 76 criminal cases). As a result of measures taken together with the international community, child labor has been completely eradicated in Uzbekistan. At the same time, it was emphasized that this issue still remains on the agenda of the State Policy.

John Richmond noted the positive dynamics in the complete elimination of child labor and the positive results of the measures taken by our Government to prevent forced labor in Uzbekistan.

During the event, the issues of migration, protection of victims of trafficking in persons, ensuring labor rights and others were considered in detail.

The parties expressed mutual interest in continuing interaction in this direction.