Uzbekistan is a major global cotton producer (among the top 10) and a significant exporter, with key markets including China and Bangladesh. For decades, the country relied on systemic forced labor, mobilizing 1–2 million people annually, including schoolchildren, college students, and civil servants, to harvest cotton by hand. Human rights concerns, documented by Uzbek activists and the Cotton Campaign, led to a global boycott initiated in 2010, with over 330 companies pledging not to source Uzbek cotton due to forced and child labor. The World Bank supported third-party monitoring by the International Labour Organization starting in 2015, which confirmed the elimination of systemic forced and child labor in the 2021 harvest. Consequently, the Cotton Campaign lifted the boycott in March 2022, and the U.S. removed import restrictions in September 2022. The Cotton Campaign has now shifted its focus to Turkmenistan, where state-imposed forced labor in cotton production remains widespread and systematic, with tens of thousands of public sector workers and farmers coerced into harvesting cotton under threat of penalties like job loss or land confiscation.