In Uzbekistan, gangs forcibly remove hundreds of thousands of children from schools, order them to pick cotton in the searing heat and live in squalid conditions on pitiful wages…Uzbeki state-controlled cotton is sold to the world's biggest retailers, making the repressive regime the third biggest exporter of "white gold"...But, in what has been described as a major breakthrough, a decision by some of the world's biggest clothing businesses has forced the Uzbeki government in recent weeks to sign International Labour Organisation conventions that commit the country to stop using child labour…Retailers that have pulled out of the central Asian state include Tesco, Asda Wal-Mart, Marks & Spencer and Gap.