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Whereas, Child labor distorts and degrades an entire society, where children are cheated out of their childhoods, denied even the most basic education and set out, often at an early age, to difficult and dangerous work at pitifully low wages; and
Whereas, This abuse of children prevents many grown men and women from finding work because employers would rather hire and exploit their sons and daughters; and
Whereas, Children as young as 6 years of age work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, scrambling for food, drugged to enable them to work longer and faster and often bent, cowed and crippled from overwork, accidents and starvation; and
Whereas, At a time when new technologies allow monetary investments to cross national borders with a keystroke on a computer and where capital can shop the world for the least expensive and most vulnerable workers, citizens of the United States must ensure that human values such as the dignity of working men and women and the dreams for their children continue to be honored; and
Whereas, International economic competition must not be allowed to degenerate into a race to the bottom where standards under which most people live are sacrificed for the private profit of a privileged few; and
Whereas, Companies in the United States must be held accountable for the actions of their contractors at home and abroad; and
Whereas, Persons in business, labor and government in our country need to do more by taking action against sweatshops and child labor in our own country as well as in other countries in the world; now, therefore,