All the defintions in my dictionary (Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language) are:
1. the owning of slaves as a practice or institution
2. the condition of a slave; bondage
3. a condition of domination by some influence, habit, etc.
4. drudgery; toil
Don’t see anything about a legally enforced relationship between 2 persons.
Nontheless, slavery is not “legal” in this country. It was abolished over 100 years ago, thank the Lord.
There are many reasons for the lethargy...one includes bribery. I doubt that many of these young girls would walk into a police station with reporters in tow, most of them fear for their lives and there is no way of escape.
Reality.
Your definitions 1 and 2 both refer to legal relationships.
Possibly I’m picking the nits too hard. My only point is that I don’t want the horrors of true slavery, which some Islamists want to bring back, to be minimized by using the term for illegal mistreatment of vulnerable people.
Criminal behavior and exploitation of the vulnerable will be with us always. That is very different from having the same behavior approved and protected by society and its legal system, as it was in this country prior to December of 1865.