Disputes - international:
prolonged drought and cotton monoculture in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan created water-sharing difficulties for Amu Darya river states; field demarcation of the boundaries with Kazakhstan commenced in 2004; border delimitation of 130 km of border with Kyrgyzstan is hampered by serious disputes around enclaves and other areas
Refugees and internally displaced persons:
IDPs: undetermined (government forcibly relocated an estimated 3,400 people from villages near the Tajikistan border in 2000-2001; no new data is available) (2012)
Trafficking in persons:
current situation: Uzbekistan is a source country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and women and children subjected to sex trafficking; adults and children are victims of government-organized forced labor during Uzbekistan's annual cotton harvest; some Uzbekistani adults are subjected to forced labor in Kazakhstan, Russia, and, to a much lesser extent, Ukraine in domestic service, agriculture, and the construction and oil industries; Uzbekistani women and children, lured with fraudulent job offers, are sex trafficked to countries in Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia; small numbers of Tajikistani and Kyrgyzstani victims have been identified in Uzbekistan
tier rating:
Tier 3 - Uzbekistan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and because it is not deemed to be making significant efforts to do so, it was downgraded to Tier 3 after the maximum of two consecutive annual waivers; the government has identified an increased number of sex and transnational labor trafficking victims; for the first time a decree was implemented banning the forced labor of children under the age of 15 in the annual cotton harvest, but government-organized forced labor of adults and older children contines in the cotton and reportedly other sectors; Uzbekistan does not have a systematic process to proactively identify trafficking victims and refer them to protective services (2013)
Illicit drugs:
transit country for Afghan narcotics bound for Russian and, to a lesser extent, Western European markets; limited illicit cultivation of cannabis and small amounts of opium poppy for domestic consumption; poppy cultivation almost wiped out by government crop eradication program; transit point for heroin precursor chemicals bound for Afghanistan