A product of the ongoing ‘Monitoring of Children and Students in the Cotton Fields in Tajikistan’ project conducted by International Organization for Migration (IOM) and sponsored by the United States
Department of State’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), this report
represents the third annual assessment of the project’s monitoring, analytic, and preventative measures.
As in previous years, the project’s objective remains the provision of assistance to the Government of
Tajikistan (GOT) in the latter’s implementation of its National Action Plan on Combating Human
Trafficking, 2011–2013. IOM’s efforts, as outlined in this report, have been focused within the scope of
this Action Plan on monitoring and preventing the use of child labour in cotton harvesting – in addition to
furthering efforts to move the Tajik labour market away from the broader use of child labour as per the
Government of Tajikistan’s ‘State Strategy on Labour Market Development until 2020.’ As in previous
years, the 2012 Cotton Monitoring Campaign’s immediate objectives remained an assessment of the
overall progress made in Tajikistan to prevent the use of child labour in the cotton harvest, as well the
heightening of coordination between NGOs and GOT agencies and general social awareness about the
exploitation of child labour.