The term voluntary slavery is often used in polemical writings and rhetoric on a number of topics. For example, it has been argued that the capitalist system of remuneration amounts to voluntary slavery and is contrary to human dignity and inalienable human rights. [17] Libertarian Murray Rothbard criticized the term as contradictory. [18] Utilitarian and consumer advocate Nick Carducci criticizes Rothbard`s demand for “slavery” as involuntary. “Voluntary slavery”, although voluntary, is available whenever contractual requirements are impossible or are made impossible by punishment. In addition, it concludes that customary law can impose the division of the spoils only in order not to enter into a state of impossibility due exclusively to the agreement of the parties, since all impossibilities are manifestly not observable and are never foreseeable. [19] Even if a worker has voluntarily accepted something, the working conditions may differ from those accepted. Even if only one worker agrees with something, his family members and offspring may be forced to comply with it. For example, some Pakistani workers agree to make bricks for an advance on their paycheck under a system called Peshgi.
However, once there, the owner of the oven may begin to harass and even rape the women in their family. Many workers feel that an attack on the women in their families invalidates any work agreement they may have. Debt settlement is often dishonest. Children can be abducted and imprisoned if the slaveholder thinks the family is likely to flee. Debt is often passed on from one generation to the next. [14] In the 1890 Brussels Law on Conferences, the signatories stated that “they were also driven by the firm intention to put an end to the African slave trade.” The Brussels Act was supplemented and revised by the Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye[3], signed by the Allies of the First World War on 10 September 1919, in which the signatories undertook to “endeavour to suppress totally slavery in all its forms and the slave trade on land and sea”. (Art.11) It also classifies “rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity” as crimes against humanity. The existence of a contract does not mean that a person has voluntarily entered the condition of forced labour.
For example, a report by Dr. Raingeard, who talks about Belgo-Congo, says, “When an indigenous person remarkably managed to resist threats and beatings from traders, I saw government officials offer him the choice between signing a contract and a prison.” [12] According to Kevin Bales, “it may be that local customs and cultures support slavery and that most of the population is aware of its existence, but admitting it is something else. . . .