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Article

29 Mar 2011

Author:
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, Cotton Campaign

Switzerland, UK Accept NGO Complaint Against EU Companies Profiting from Uzbek Child Labor

Switzerland joined the United Kingdom in accepting the complaints filed by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)…to the Organisation for Economic Co-Cooperation and Development (OECD)…ECCHR, joined by partner organizations…filed complaints to the OECD last October, citing seven companies doing business in the EU member states of Switzerland, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Their contention was that EU cotton traders were profiting from forced child labor, widely documented as a systematic practice in Uzbekistan...[T]he companies counter-claim — that they didn’t have sufficient relationship to the Uzbek sources to be the subject of a complaint — has been thrown out by both the UK and Swiss NCPs [National Contact Points].