The use of child labor to harvest cotton is driven by diverse and deeply-ingrained forces in Uzbekistan, including: the historical legacy of compulsory labor mobilization for the cotton harvest; a “command economy” in the cotton sector, which gives the government control over what farmers plant, what inputs they use, what national production quotas they fill, and where they sell their crops; the repression of journalists and advocates who speak out on this issue; and the ease and profitability of mobilizing underage workers.