Editing Involuntary servitude

{{Short description|Legal term which may constitute slavery}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}{{Use British English|date=January 2025}}
{{slavery}}
'''Involuntary servitude''' or '''involuntary slavery''', more commonly known as just '''slavery,''' is a [[law|legal]] and [[constitution]]al term for a person laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of [[coercion]], to which it may constitute slavery. While labouring 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|unfree labour]]. Involuntary servitude is not dependent upon [[Remuneration|compensation]] or its amount. Prison labour is often referred to as involuntary servitude. Prisoners are forced to work for free or for very little money while they carry out their time in the system.

==Jurisdictions==
===Malaysia===
The [[Constitution of Malaysia]], Part II, article 6, states:<ref>[[s:Constitution of Malaysia#Article 6: Slavery and forced labour prohibited|"Constitution of Malaysia, as at 1 November 2010", Part II, Article 6]], via WikiSource, retrieved 2021-02-12</ref>
# No person shall be held in slavery.
#All forms of forced labour are prohibited, but Parliament may by law provide for [[Civil conscription|compulsory service]] for national purposes.
#Work incidental to the serving of a sentence of imprisonment imposed by a court of law shall not be taken to be forced labour within the meaning of this Article.
#Where by any written law the whole or any part of the functions of any public authority is to be carried on by another public authority, for the purpose of enabling those functions to be performed the employees of the first mentioned public authority shall be bound to serve the second mentioned public authority shall not be taken to be forced labour within the meaning of this Article, and no such employee shall be entitled to demand any right from either the first mentioned or the second mentioned public authority by reason of the transfer of his employment.

===Philippines===
The [[Constitution of the Philippines]], article III, section 18, states that "No involuntary servitude in any form shall exist except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."<ref>[[s:Constitution of the Philippines (1987)#Article III: Bill of Rights|"The Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines (1987)", Article III, Section 18]]</ref>

===United States===
{{commons|File:Circular No. 3591.pdf|U.S. Department of Justice Circular No. 3591 Re: Involuntary Servitude, Slavery, and Peonage}}
The [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution]] makes involuntary servitude illegal under any U.S. jurisdiction whether at the hands of the government or in the private sphere, except [[Penal labor in the United States|as punishment for a crime]]: <blockquote>Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.</blockquote>

The Supreme Court has held, in ''Butler v. Perry'' (1916), that the Thirteenth Amendment does not prohibit "enforcement of those duties which individuals owe to the state, such as services in the army, militia, on the jury, etc."<ref>{{ussc|name=Butler v. Perry|volume=240|page=328|pin=|year=1916}}</ref>  Onerous long term alimony and spousal support orders, premised on a proprietary interest retained by former marital partners in one another's persons, have also been allowed in many states, though they may in practice embody features of involuntary servitude.<ref>{{Citation
 |last        = Sciarrino
 |first       = Alfred J.
 |title       = Alimony: Peonage or Involuntary Servitude
 |publisher   = American Journal of Trial Advocates 67
 |year        = 2003
 |url         = http://www.massalimonyreform.org/PDFs/alimony-servitude-peonage.pdf
 |url-status  = dead
 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100107054234/http://www.massalimonyreform.org/PDFs/alimony-servitude-peonage.pdf
 |archive-date = 2010-01-07
}}</ref>

==Other interpretations of involuntary servitude==
=== Abortion rights ===
Some have also argued that, should ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'', 410 U.S. 113 (1973), be overturned by the United States Supreme Court, a constitutional right to abortion could still be sustained on the basis that denying it would subject women to involuntary servitude contrary to the Thirteenth Amendment.<ref>Koppelman, Andrew, "Forced Labor: A Thirteenth Amendment Defense of Abortion", 84 ''Northwestern University Law Review'' 480 (1990)</ref> That decision was overturned in June of 2022,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/19-1392/|title=Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U. S. ____ (2022)|website=Justia|date=May 16, 2021|access-date=June 27, 2022}}</ref> but it is unclear whether forced pregnancy and child-bearing are within the scope of the term "servitude".<ref>{{cite journal|first=Norman|last=Vieira|journal=The University of Chicago Law Review|volume=55|issue=4|year=1988|pages=1181–1191|title=Hardwick and the Right of Privacy|doi=10.2307/1599785 |jstor=1599785 |url=https://jstor.org/stable/1599785|via=|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

===Compulsory schooling===
Some libertarians consider [[compulsory schooling]] involuntary servitude. [[John Taylor Gatto]], a retired schoolteacher and libertarian activist critical of compulsory schooling writes of what he terms "The Cult Of Forced Schooling".<ref>{{Citation
|last=Gatto
|first=John Taylor
|title=The Underground History of American Education
|publisher=Oxford Village Press
|year=2001
|isbn=978-0-945700-04-3
|chapter=16. A conspiracy Against Ourselves
|chapter-url=http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16c.htm
|url=http://lpedia.org/wiki/National_Platform
|access-date=2021-07-28
}}</ref> Many libertarians consider income taxation a form of involuntary servitude. [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] [[United States Congressman|Congressman]] [[Ron Paul]] has described income tax as "a form of involuntary servitude",<ref>{{Citation
|author=Ron Paul
|title=Fewer Taxes for Real Economic Stimulus
|date=April 13, 2009
}}</ref> and has written, "... things like [[Selective Service System|Selective Service]] and the income tax make me wonder how serious we really are in defending just basic freedoms.<ref>{{Citation
|url=http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?BLOG,tx14_paul,blog,999,All,Item%20not%20found,ID=090216_2679,TEMPLATE=postingdetail.shtml
|title=On Reinstating the Draft
|author=Ron Paul
|author-link=Ron Paul
|year=2009
|publisher=house.gov
|access-date=2009-06-05}}</ref>

===Military conscription===
The [[Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian Party of the United States]] and other [[libertarianism|libertarian]]s consider military conscription to be involuntary servitude in the sense of the Thirteenth Amendment.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dehnbase.org/lpus/library/platform/catm.html|title=Conscription and the Military|work=Libertarian Party|publisher=www.dehnbase.org|accessdate=December 10, 2021}}</ref> The [[U.S. Supreme Court]] disagreed with that interpretation in ''[[Arver v. United States]],'' relying on text of Article I and the prerequisites of [[sovereignty]].

==Law and economics==

In [[contract theory]], researchers have studied whether workers should be allowed to waive their right to quit work, or whether the right to quit should be inalienable. Suppose that at date 1 a worker ''voluntarily'' signs a labour contract according to which the worker has to perform a task at date 2. At date 2, the worker no longer wants to perform the task (see the English contract law case [[Lumley v Wagner]] for a classic example). Would it be a form of ''involuntary'' servitude if the worker were forced by the courts to fulfill the contractual duties?<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pope|first=J. G.|date=2010|title=Contract, Race, and Freedom of Labor in the Constitutional Law of 'Involuntary Servitude'|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25681947|journal=The Yale Law Journal|volume=119|issue=7|pages=1474–1567|jstor=25681947|issn=0044-0094}}</ref> Müller and Schmitz (2021) have shown that from an economic efficiency point-of-view, in a static setting it can indeed be desirable to restrict the freedom of contract by making the right to quit inalienable. However, they also show that in a dynamic setting even the worker can be strictly better off when it is possible to contractually waive the right to quit.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Müller|first1=Daniel|last2=Schmitz|first2=Patrick W.|date=2021|title=The right to quit work: An efficiency rationale for restricting the freedom of contract|journal=Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization|language=en|volume=184|pages=653–669|doi=10.1016/j.jebo.2021.02.004|issn=0167-2681|doi-access=free}}</ref> 

== See also ==
*[[Civil conscription]]
*[[Cruel and unusual punishment]]
*[[Debt bondage]]
*[[Indentured servitude]]
*[[Peon]]
*[[Person]]
*[[Slavery]]
*[[Wage slavery]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/9/the_slave_next_door_human_trafficking The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today] – video report by ''[[Democracy Now!]]''

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[[Category:American legal terminology]]
[[Category:Debt bondage]]
[[Category:Human rights abuses]]
[[Category:Penal labor in the United States]]