Uzbekistan is the world's sixth largest producer of cotton, and the fifth largest exporter. For decades, Uzbekistan has used the forced labor of its schoolchildren starting in the early primary grades, college and university students, and civil servants, to harvest that cotton by hand. The human rights concerns surrounding Uzbek cotton production lead to a 'call for a boycott' of Uzbek cotton from Uzbek and international activists. The ban was initiated in 2010 by the Cotton Campaign due to forced harvesting, where more than 2 million people, including children, were forced into the fields. The World Bank put in place a monitoring campaign, which found forced labour had been eliminated by 2021 and the boycott was lifted in 2022.