Slave labour

A group of individuals over whom any of the powers of the right of ownership are exercised and who are subject to the absolute control of one person or a group of persons.

"There has been strong resistance to placing responsibility for the protection of workers' rights within the WTO framework. Developing countries have been one source of such resistance. [They] are legitimately concerned that low labour standards could be used by developed countries as a pretext for disguised protectionist measures against them. It is important to note that some developing countries have used this argument to perpetuate and condone slave labour and exploitative forms of child labour. In effect, such manipulative discourse misuses trade language to justify non-compliance with human rights standards."
(Howse, R. and Nicolaidis, K., Legitimacy and Global Governance: Why Constitutionalizing the WTO is a Step Too Far, Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2000)

As a legally-permitted labour system, traditional slavery has been abolished everywhere. It is prohibited by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery. But despite the fact that it is banned in most of the countries where it is practised, there are still reports of slave markets.
(adapted from the United Nations Human Rights, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Anti-Slavery International, What is modern slavery?, 2006, visited 2009-05-12)

"In 2000, Anti-Slavery International, a nongovernmental organization based in London, estimated that there were about 27 million people who were slaves – that is, they were forced to work through the threat of violence or punishment – in the world."
(Docherty, J.C., Historical Dictionary of Organized Labor, Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004)