Uzbek nurses, teachers in forced labour

LONDON: Nurses and teachers in Uzbekistan are being forced to clean streets, plant trees and harvest wheat or face the sack, fines or pay cuts, despite a government drive to end state-imposed work, labour rights groups said yesterday. Public sector workers were forced by the government to carry out manual labour, said the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights and the United States-based Solidarity Centre in a report based on interviews with about 260 people such as teachers and medics.