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The Slavery Convention (article 1.1) in 1926 defined slavery as"...the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised...." The convention defined slave trade as "...all acts involved in the capture, acquisition or disposal of a person with intent to reduce him to slavery; all acts involved in the acquisition of a slave with a view to selling or exchanging him; all acts of disposal by sale or exchange of a slave acquired with a view to being sold or exchanged, and, in general, every act of trade or transport in slaves by whatever means of conveyance." (article 1.2)

The 1926 Convention's definition of slavery was broadened to include forced or compulsory labor in 1930 in the ILO Convention (No. 29) concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour (article 2.1):"...all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily."

According to the United Nations, 4 million people a year are traded against their will to work in a form of servitude. The majority of them come from Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Nowhere is slavery legal in the sense that no legal system recognizes title or property in a living human being. This means that no court will enforce a contract to buy and sell slaves or enforce the right of a master to the labor of his or her slave. However, although slavery, as a form of property recognized by the state, has been abolished, millions of people are still enslaved.

The Society uses the definition of slavery enunciated in 1880 by the High Court of Allahabad in India, which, in substance, is that a person is treated as a slave or is reduced to a condition of slavery if another exercises power or control over that person:

(1)to restrain their personal liberty; and

(2)to dispose of their labor against their will — without lawful authority.

Slavery is sometimes confused with other forms of servitude, such as forced labor, bonded labor, pawnage and servile concubinage.

The expression "forced labor", in international law, refers to those forms of labor obligations or penal labor imposed by a state or an agency or agent of the government or state and which are described in the Forced Labor Convention 1930 and the Abolition of Forced Labor Convention 1957.

2.1 THE ROOTS OF SLAVERY

The term slave has its origins in the word slav. The slavs, who inhabited a large part of Eastern Europe, were taken as slaves by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD.

Slavery can broadly be described as the ownership, buying and selling of human beings for the purpose of forced and unpaid labour. It is an ancient practice, mentioned in both the Bible and the Koran.

‘As for those of your slaves which wish to buy their liberty, free them if you find in them any promise and bestow on them a part of the riches which God has given you.'[Koran, Chapter 24, Verse 32.]