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The Government of Turkmenistan and the International Labor Organization (ILO) signed Addendums to the Memorandum of Understanding on a survey of working conditions during the cotton harvest in 2023.

According to the document, the set out obligations of the parties in the Memorandum of Understanding dated 2023 will remain in force in the current year 2024. Thus, the parties will continue to work together to improve working conditions and strengthen measures to prevent cases of forced and child labor during cotton picking.

Based on this document, ILO review missions in Turkmenistan will also begin in the second half of August of this year.

It is important to note that over the past few years, Turkmenistan and the ILO have been actively interacting in terms of the effective implementation of international documents in the field of labor, to which our country has acceded.

The parties apply good practice in developing Action Roadmaps to achieve the required results. In particular, the Roadmap of cooperation activities between the Government of Turkmenistan and the ILO for the period 2024 – 2025 is currently being implemented.

As part of this Roadmap, in addition to ongoing activities, earlier the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of Turkmenistan made changes to the list of jobs, professions and positions with harmful and dangerous (especially harmful and especially dangerous) working conditions in which the employment of persons under the age of eighteen is permitted. In particular, the positions “cotton picker” and “cotton grower” were included in the mentioned list.

Based on the same Roadmap, from June 2024, an active phase of negotiations, seminars and trainings began, aimed at representatives of local authorities, social partners, ordinary residents of the country and specialists in raising public awareness regarding preventing the mobilization and involvement of child labor in cotton harvest processes.

All this activity is a striking example and evidence of Turkmenistan’s commitment to international obligations not only in the field of labor, but also in terms of ensuring basic human rights, as well as our country’s readiness and openness to subsequent processes to achieve better results, the Permanent Mission of Turkmenistan at the UN office in Geneva noted.

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Photo: Permanent Mission of Turkmenistan to the United Nations Office at Geneva