abstract:Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion other than the worker's financial needs. While laboring to benefit another occurs also in the condition of slavery, involuntary servitude does not necessarily connote the complete lack of freedom experienced in chattel slavery; involuntary servitude may also refer to other forms of unfree labor.
"These crimes know no borders. In Iran, children are forced into sexual slavery, involuntary servitude, while Iranian girls are trafficked into Pakistan and numerous other countries.
VOA: standard.2009.06.16
Involuntaryservitude is not something we can ignore or hope doesn't exist in our own communities.
What Americans of yesteryear lacked was not voluntary cooperation and trade, but involuntaryservitude (slavery being the glaring, deplorable exception).