University students forced to pick cotton during Uzbekistan's cotton harvest have been left with mounds of crippling debts from their experience, raising further questions about the feasibility of the country's all-consuming cotton culture.

In the southwestern town of Bukhara, the problem is particularly dire. This fall, most of the city's 4,200 university students spent an average of two months in the fields harvesting cotton rather than studying. Although touted by the government as a "volunteer" activity, students say that they were compelled to perform the work under threat of expulsion, and charged for sub-standard food and lodging. Those that fail to reimburse the government for its expenses will see the amount deducted from their monthly stipends, students say.

"Each student had to pick 80 kilograms of cotton daily," recounted one Bukhara student who spoke with EurasiaNet on condition of anonymity. "Initially, we could pick that much, but then there was less and less cotton left in the fields and there was no way we could pick 80 kilos. But they continued keeping us in the fields and providing food for us."

At the end of the two-month stint, the student said that he was presented with a bill for 9,000 sums, about $8.41, for the food provided – nearly the sum of his monthly stipend. Others claim debts as high as 25,000 sums, or about $23.

Students say that what they received for that amount was far from adequate. Barracks contained no water supplies or heating systems. Starch dominated the meal plan.

"We were mostly served pasta, often with flour worms, and suspicious soups," one Bukhara student, who gave her name as Nargiza, said. "Many refused to eat it, because it was dangerous. Several people became ill."

Human right defenders and the students' parents echo these claims, reporting that many dozens of students are hospitalized after each cotton-picking campaign with colds, food poisonings, or infectious diseases.

"I had to come to the field every week to bring some food and whatever else is necessary," said Nargiza's mother, Feruza. "It was an expense, but we do whatever it takes for our children. Fortunately, my child did not fall ill, but our neighbors' son did."

So far, the city's government-run institutions of higher learning are showing little sympathy for the complaints. Officials at Bukhara State University, the Bukhara Medical Institute, and the Bukhara Technological Institute of Food and Light Industries all refused to discuss the issue of student debts with EurasiaNet. "The debts are the students' fault. They should have worked harder and picked more cotton," commented one school official. "You cannot imagine how much was spent on food for them."

Cotton is still king in Uzbekistan, providing the Central Asian state with the bulk of its hard currency funds. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The country exports about 75 percent of its crop yield, and ranks as the world's second-largest cotton exporter. During the cotton harvest, newspapers feature Soviet-style headlines that urge workers to "Reap Prosperity!" Uzbek President Islam Karimov also plays a role, this year telling cotton workers in the Kashkadarja region, the first to meet the 2004 cotton quota, that they would "[increase] the fame and power of the Motherland, working for [the] development of a prosperous and great future," the news agency Ferghana.ru reported.

Human rights activists, however, have taken a different tact, arguing that neither Uzbek laws nor international conventions on labor rights authorize provincial governors to oblige students to harvest cotton. Each year in Uzbekistan, students are sent to the cotton fields under provincial governors' unpublished rulings. Officially, all the students are volunteers, but those who fail to "volunteer" face serious repercussions, including expulsions for students and dismissals for faculty.

Activists have urged students to sue the government for abuse of their rights, but, so far, none have taken such a step. Given the absence of private schools in Uzbekistan, many often see their cotton assignment as a take-it-or-leave-it option for a higher education.

"More than 80 percent of the students pay their tuitions from their own pockets or those of their parents. In exchange, the college administration is obliged to provide the students with the training and knowledge for which they paid," said Shukhrat Ganiyev, a Bukhara-based human rights defender.

Nor do university tuitions come cheap. In a country with average per capita incomes of just $1,700, annual tuitions range from $300 and $800, depending on the school's prestige and popularity. If universities and institutes send students to work on cotton plantations after receiving this money, commented Ganiyev, they should not require students to pay for their food and housing. Running up debts for the experience, he said, just adds insult to injury.

"People take the risk and pay [for university]. But they do not pay for spending two months on cotton plantations picking cotton."