By Mansour Mirovalev and Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, Dec. 17/18, 2013

SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan — For most of the year, Dr. Tamara Khidoyatova treats patients as a doctor at a hospital here in this picturesque, old Silk Road city. But for a few weeks every autumn, she is forced to pick cotton, for which she is paid little or nothing.

Throughout the fall, when the cotton harvest comes in, the government drafts about a million people, primarily public-sector employees and professionals, to work as cotton pickers, helping bring in the harvest for the world’s fifth-largest cotton exporting nation.

“You come to work, with all the makeup, wearing nice clothes, good shoes,” Dr. Khidoyatova, 61, said. “And the polyclinic director runs in and says, ‘I need 40 people in the field, the bus is outside, hurry, hurry!’ ”

That was just a day trip. But most people are given some notice, and then go away for a month at a time [....]