Uzbekistan vs. Afghanistan
Transnational Issues
| Uzbekistan | Afghanistan | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Afghan, Coalition, and Pakistan military meet periodically to clarify the alignment of the boundary on the ground and on maps and since 2014 have met to discuss collaboration on the Taliban insurgency and counterterrorism efforts; Afghan and Iranian commissioners have discussed boundary monument densification and resurvey; Iran protests Afghanistan's restricting flow of dammed Helmand River tributaries during drought; Pakistan has sent troops across and built fences along some remote tribal areas of its treaty-defined Durand Line border with Afghanistan which serve as bases for foreign terrorists and other illegal activities; Russia remains concerned about the smuggling of poppy derivatives from Afghanistan through Central Asian countries |
| 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 | world's largest producer of opium; poppy cultivation increased 63 percent, to 328,304 hectares in 2017; while eradication increased slightly, it still remains well below levels achieved in 2015; the 2017 crop yielded an estimated 9,000 mt of raw opium, a 88% increase over 2016; the Taliban and other antigovernment groups participate in and profit from the opiate trade, which is a key source of revenue for the Taliban inside Afghanistan; widespread corruption and instability impede counterdrug efforts; most of the heroin consumed in Europe and Eurasia is derived from Afghan opium; Afghanistan is also struggling to respond to a burgeoning domestic opiate addiction problem; a 2015 national drug use survey found that roughly 11% of the population tested positive for one or more illicit drugs; vulnerable to drug money laundering through informal financial networks; illicit cultivation of cannabis and regional source of hashish (2018) |
| Refugees and internally displaced persons | stateless persons: 69,791 (2020) | refugees (country of origin): 72,191 (Pakistan) (2019) IDPs: 3.547 million (mostly Pashtuns and Kuchis displaced in the south and west due to natural disasters and political instability) (2020) |
| 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 are victims of government-organized forced labor during Uzbekistan's annual cotton harvest; local officials in some instances force teachers, students (including children), private businesses employees, and others to work in construction and other forms of non-cotton agriculture and to clean parks, streets, and buildings; traffickers exploit Uzbek women and children in sex trafficking in the Middle East, Eurasia, and Asia, and internally in brothels, clubs, and private residences; traffickers subject Uzbek men, and to a lesser extent women, to forced labor in Kazakhstan, Russia, Moldova, Turkey, and in other Asian, Middle Eastern, and European countries in the construction, oil and gas, agricultural, retail, and food sectors tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Uzbekistan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so; government efforts included addressing the use of forced adult labor during the cotton harvest by increasing pay to laborers and improving working conditions for voluntary workers and ceasing the forced use of students, teachers, and health care workers; third-party monitors were allowed access to the harvest to view changes; the government created a National Commission on Trafficking chaired by the regional governor in every area of the country; however, reports continued of corrupt officials requiring public sector employees to pick cotton or pay for a replacement worker with extorted penalties paid to them; fewer cases of traffickers were investigated and prosecuted, fewer victims of trafficking were identified, and fewer convictions carried a prison sentence; authorities conducted no investigations against corrupt officials extorting money during the cotton harvest (2020) | current situation: human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims and returning Afghan migrants and exploit Afghan victims abroad; internal trafficking is more prevalent than transnational trafficking; traffickers exploit men, women, and a large number of children domestically; victims are subjected to forced labor in agriculture, brick kilns, carpet weaving, domestic servitude, commercial sex, begging, poppy cultivation and harvesting, salt mining, transnational drug smuggling, and truck driving; Afghan security forces and non-state armed groups, including the pro-government militias and the Taliban, continue to unlawfully recruit and use child soldiers; sexual exploitation of boys remains pervasive nationwide, and traffickers subject some boys to sexual exploitation abroad tier rating: Tier 3 - Afghanistan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons and is not making significant efforts to do so; the government decreased law enforcement efforts against civilian and official perpetrators of trafficking, and officials complicit in recruitment and use of child soldiers and the sexual exploitation of boys continued to operate with impunity; authorities continued to arrest, detain, and penalize many trafficking victims, including punishing sex trafficking victims for "moral crimes"; the judiciary remained underfunded, understaffed, and undertrained (2020) |
Source: CIA Factbook
