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    In the blistering heat, CBS News found children in Ghana as young as 5 years old using machetes nearly as big as themselves to harvest the cocoa beans that end up in some of America’s most-loved chocolates.

    Our team traveled across Ghana’s remote cocoa belt to visit small subsistence farms that supply the U.S. chocolate giant Mars, which produces candies including M&Ms and Snickers.

    We found children working at each one of the farms — despite the company’s vow to have systems in place to eradicate child labor in its supply chain by 2025.

    He and other supervisors told CBS News they were under pressure to produce names, often with only 24 hours’ notice, and he said the companies never verify the information.

    An employee at the warehouse, who is not being named by CBS News, said child labor was “an offense” in the country, but he could not guarantee all the cocoa handled at the facility was produced without it.

    Terry Collingsworth, a human rights lawyer in the U.S., has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging consumer fraud against American chocolate companies including Mars.


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