Despite the fact that on May 15, 1997 Turkmenistan signed and ratified the ILO Convention #105, which prohibits forced labor, and Convention #29 on forced labor, every year tens of thousands of residents of Turkmenistan are forced to harvest cotton. In so doing Turkmenistan is violating the responsibilities taken on by joining the ILO and violating its own labor law, chapter 8 of which defines forced labor as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”