The human rights organization Anti-Slavery International has published a report devoted to Turkmenistan.
Human rights activists have found out that Turkmenistan make annual supplies of cotton worth $300 mln to Turkey. This cotton is used to produce Turkish textile products, which subsequently enter global supply chains.
Anti-Slavery identified a few Turkey-based companies working closely with the textile industry in Turkmenistan with Calik Holding being one of them.
Human rights activists encourage global brands to publicly join the Turkmen Cotton Pledge not to use Turkmen cotton in their products as well as to commit Turkish supplies to not source Turkmenistan-made raw materials.
Let us recall that quite a few of the largest world brands including IKEA, H&M, Wrangler, Lee, Zara and others had previously refused to procure cotton and textile goods from Turkmenistan because child and forced labour is used during its harvesting.
Adidas, Columbia Sportswear, Designworks, Gap Inc., H&M, Marks & Spencer, Nike, Rowlinson Knitwear, Royal Bermuda, Sears Holdings, Varner Retail and VF Corporation also signed Turkmen Cotton Pledge not to use cotton made in Turkmenistan.
In May 2018 the US authorities imposed a ban on the importation of all Turkmenistan cotton, or products produced in whole or in part with Turkmen cotton.