Family Farms? Presidential Decree 3077

Sting said this about playing in Tashkent:

I am well aware of the Uzbek president’s appalling reputation in the field of human rights as well as the environment. I made the decision to play there in spite of that have come to believe that cultural boycotts are not only pointless gestures, they are counter-productive.

This stands in stark contrast to Sting’s refusal to cross Kazakhstan’s “virtual picket lines.” Much like the concert in Kazakhstan, which was part of the president’s birthday celebrations, Sting’s appearance in Tashkent was solely for the enjoyment of Uzbekistan’s elite. The cheapest tickets cost $1000. That’s 45 times more than the average Uzbek’s monthly salary. 

Amid growing concern for the human rights situation the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston visited the Philippines in 2007. He found that in the name counter-insurgency operations against the armed-wing of the Communist Party, the New People’s Army, government killings had “eliminated civil society leaders, including human rights defenders, trade unionists and land reform advocates...”  

How can so many children loose their childhoods to the cocoa bean? Most of the trafficked children come from Mali. Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world with 54% of Mali’s people living below $1.25 a day, and 77% below $2 a day.  Therefore people travel to Cote d'Ivoire to find jobs. Of the thousands of children who have experienced trafficking and/or forced labor, the majority are from Mali. Parents often send their children from their rural homes (where there is a lack of resources and jobs) to Cote d'Ivoire to work in whatever conditions to support their families.