compulsory labor
Mandated toil system
Compulsory labor is work that people are forced to perform, whether by government mandate, legal penalty, or coercion.
The term covers prison labor, conscripted service, and work imposed under authoritarian regimes.
It overlaps with but is broader than slavery—compulsory labor may be temporary or state-sanctioned rather than ownership-based: The regime used compulsory labor to build infrastructure.
- modern slaveryCurrent forced labor exploitation
- human traffickingCriminal trade in people
- trafficking victimsPeople exploited through coercion
- slaveryOwnership of people
- serfdomFeudal bound labor
convict leasing · impressment · abolitionism · conscription · peonage · exploitation · anti-slavery movements · indentured servitude · gulags · chain gangs · feudalism · plantation economy · work quotas · freedom of association · sweatshops · economic inequality · debt bondage · forced marriage
- exploitationexploit, predatory, sex trafficking, take advantage, human trafficking
- labor systemschattel slavery, debt bondage, indentured servitude, manorialism, peonage
- bondageslavery, servitude, bondage, slaves, thrall
- Soviet laborgulag, gulags, production quota, central planning, planned economy
compulsory laborvoluntary work
Unpaid charitable labor
wage labor · freelance work · self-employment · voluntary service · volunteer work
compulsory laborleisure
Free time for relaxation
recreation · idleness · free time · rest · retirement
compulsory, labor, compel, compelled, compelling, compulsion, compulsive, compulsively, laborer