The word slave arrived in modern English from Middle English sclave, from Old French esclave, from Late Middle High German sklave, from Medieval Latin sclāvus, from Late Latin Sclāvus, from Byzantine Greek Σκλάβος, Έσκλαβήνος. In industrialised countries, human trafficking is a modern variety of slavery in non-industrialised countries, enslavement by debt bondage is a common form of enslaving a person, such as captive domestic servants, people in forced marriages, and child soldiers. In the modern world, more than 50% of slaves provide forced labour, usually in the factories and sweatshops of the private sector of a country's economy. However, in 2019, approximately 40 million people, of whom 26% were children, were still enslaved throughout the world despite slavery being illegal. In 2007, 'under international pressure', its government passed a law allowing slaveholders to be prosecuted. The Islamic Republic of Mauritania was the last country in the world to officially ban slavery.

In economics, the term de facto slavery describes the conditions of unfree labour and forced labour that most slaves endure. In chattel slavery, the slave is legally rendered the personal property (chattel) of the slave owner. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization, and was legal in most societies, but it is now outlawed in most countries of the world, except as a punishment for a crime. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life, or for a fixed period of time after which they would be granted freedom. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, suffering a military defeat, or exploitation for cheaper labor other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race or sex. Enslavement is the placement of a person into slavery. Slavery typically involves compulsory work with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage.

Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labor.

World conqueror 4 country color codes