Forced labourForced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of extreme hardship to either themselves or members of their families. Forced labour includes all forms of slavery, penal labour, and the corresponding institutions, such as debt slavery, serfdom, corvée and labour camps.
Penal labourType of forced labour performed by prisonersMale convicts sewing at the Văcărești prison in Bucharest, Romania, 1930s.Female convicts chained together by their necks for work on a road. Dar es Salaam, Tanganyikac. 1890–1927.In penology, penal labour or prison labour is a term for various kinds of forced labour that prisoners are required to perform, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context.
Human historyRecords of Earth's people Part of a series onHuman history ↑ Prehistory (Stone Age) (Pleistocene epoch) Holocene TimelinesNeolithic – Contemporary(11,650 BP – present) Age of the human race Recorded history (Common Era) Earliest records Protohistory Proto-writing Ancient Copper Age Bronze Age Iron Age Axial Age Classical antiquity Late antiquity Africa North America South America Oceania East Asia South Asia Southeast Asia West Asia Europe Postclassical Timeline Africa Americas Oceania East Asia South Asia Southeast Asia West Asia Europe Renaissance Modern Early modern Late modern Contemporary Africa North America South America Oceania East Asia South Asia Southeast Asia West Asia Europe See also Age of Discovery Modernity Postmodernity Futurology Political history ↓ Future vte Human history, or world history, is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present.
Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdomProclamation of the Abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies, 27 April 1848, 1849, by François Auguste Biard, Palace of VersaillesThe abolition of slavery occurred at different times in different countries. It frequently occurred sequentially in more than one stage – for example, as abolition of the trade in slaves in a specific country, and then as abolition of slavery throughout empires. Each step was usually the result of a separate law or action.CivilizationA civilization (American English and Oxford spelling) or civilisation (common British English) is any complex society characterized by the development of the state, urbanization, and standardized symbolic systems of communication, namely writing systems.Civilizations are organized around densely populated settlements, divided into more or less rigid hierarchicalsocial classes of division of labour, often with a ruling elite and subordinate urban and rural populations, which engage in intensive agriculture, mining, small-scale manufacture and trade.
PovertyLack of economic resourcesClockwise from top left: a homeless man in Toronto, Canada; a disabled man begging in the streets of Beijing, China; waste pickers in Lucknow, India; a mother with her malnourished child in a clinic near Dadaab, KenyaGlobal income distribution over time. The chart shows a significant shift of incomes toward higher levels.Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living.
PropertyEntity owned by a person or a group of people Buildings of shops, hotels, and residences are prevalent forms of property. Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves.OwnershipOwnership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different parties. The process and mechanics of ownership are fairly complex: one can gain, transfer, and lose ownership of property in a number of ways.
RacismRace or ethnic-based discriminationRacism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race or ethnicity over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different ethnic background. Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples.Voluntary slaveryVoluntary slavery, in theory, is the condition of slavery entered into at a point of voluntary consent. It is distinguished from involuntary slavery where an individual is forced to a period of servitude, sometimes as a punishment for a crime.
ManumissionManumission, enfranchisement, or franchisement is the act of freeing slaves by their owners. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that the most widely used term is gratuitous manumission, "the conferment of freedom on the enslaved by enslavers before the end of the slave system". The motivations for manumission were complex and varied.
Biological sexTrait that determines an organism's sexually reproductive functionSex is the phenotypic trait of a sexually reproducing organism in producing gametes of one of two different sizes or shapes—male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male and a female gamete fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inherits traits from each parent.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.