On March 24, 2021 National Commission on Combating Human Trafficking and Forced Labour held a meeting.

It was attended by members of the National Commission and territorial commissions, heads of relevant ministries and government bodies, as well as representatives of the mass media.

The meeting was chaired by the Chairwoman of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Chairwoman of the National Commission Tanzila Narbaeva.

During the meeting, National Commission representative presented information about the work done and further tasks of the National Commission.

In particular, presentation also reflects the work done to improve national legislation, organizational and practical measures taken, existing problems and proposals for their solution.

As a result of the taken measures, 93 crimes related to human trafficking were registered, where 51 were crimes of sexual exploitation, 3 were the use of labour, 39 crimes related to children trafficking.

In order to prevent forced labour, 5,684 organizations were investigated, administrative fines were imposed on 106 officials who allowed forced labour and on 125 officials who did not pay wages on time and did not create appropriate working conditions.

Relations in this area also have been regulated with the adoption of the new edition of the Law “On Combating Human Trafficking”.

Third-party monitoring of the child and forced labour in the cotton harvest was carried out, as well as National Monitoring by the Federation of Trade Unions. Senators and deputies carried parliamentary control with the participation of journalists and bloggers.

According to the monitoring results, systematic use of child and forced labour in cotton harvesting has been completely eliminated.

In addition, more than 50 projects on combating human trafficking and forced labour and protecting the rights of migrants have been implemented jointly with International organizations.

Representative offices of the Agency for External Labour Migration have been established in Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk cities, Russia.

During the meeting, along with the work carried out in our country to combat human trafficking and forced labour, the existing problems and shortcomings were also critically discussed.

National Commission gave relevant conclusions and instructions according to reports of the heads of subcommittees on combating human trafficking (Ministry of Internal Affairs) and forced labour (Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations), as well as territorial commissions (Andijan, Bukhara and Khorezm regions).

In particular, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations - Chairman of the Subcommittee on Combating Forced Labour N.Khusanov informed participants about the activities of the commission and the tasks that are planned to be implemented this year. In particular, to continue work on the comprehensive protection of the labour rights of citizens, the creation of decent and safe working conditions, the fight against forced labour, while, together with the ILO, from 2021 it is planned to conduct monitoring to identify problems related to compliance with the rules of labour legislation in other spheres of the economy, in particular in sericulture, construction and public catering.

The "Action Plan ("Road Map") was considered and approved by the National Commission together with the relevant ministries and departments for the implementation of the proposals set out in the information on the work done to combat human trafficking and forced labour in 2020.