#uzbekistant

unknown palace

Fashion Week in New York City has officially ended.  Numerous designers showcased their new fall fashions while top industry personalities watched and judged.  One designer who did not get to feature , though, was Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, known for his government that forces two million Uzbek children each year to abandon education for cotton farming.  Her cotton-heavy show was halted by a campaign launched by Human Rights Watch.  Read about the campaign beneath the photo. - AN-H

via Human Rights Watch

Enslaving children and torturing dissidents is never chic.

The daughter of Uzbekistan’s dictator planned to unveil her spring fashion line at New York City’s prestigious Fashion Week. But her show was canceled after Human Rights Watch and a coalition of like-minded organizations spotlighted her connection to her father’s tyrannical government.

Gulnara Karimova isn’t just the eldest daughter of Islam Karimov – Uzbekistan’s autocratic leader since the Soviet era – she also serves as the government’s ambassador to Spain and the United Nations, a high-level position in a regime known for imprisoning and torturing political opponents and rights activists. Her father’s government forces up to two million Uzbek children to leave school for two months each year to pick cotton – a fabric woven throughout Karimova’s designs.