Slavery

Although previously associated with primative societies, there are now several forms of slavery permitted by Canon Law, and the term has no strong negative connotations.

Contractual Slavery

It is considered legal for a person to waive any rights he is normally granted under planetary law. Although rarely invoked, anyone who wishes to become a slave may sign a contract declaring himself to be the property of another, discarding his statutory rights and freedoms either temporarily or for life.

Someone who obtains a slave in this way only has responsibilities as defined in the contract. Normally they are required to provide food and medical care for their slaves, but this is not always the case.

Penal Slavery

In an attempt to reduce the proportion of the population permanently incarcerated, prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment on some worlds may instead opt to repay their debt to society in a more productive manner.

Having shown some degree of repentance, prisners are released to a sponsor who accepts responsibility for their actions. Typically, a convict who becomes a slave in this way cannot own property and may lose other rights. This is seen as morally acceptable, in that someone who has comitted such a serious crime must surrender their own basic human rights in order to ensure the safety of the majority.

On some worlds, however, this system takes a more aggressive form: criminals may be judged too dangerous to live, but the church interprets their scriptures literally and disallows capital punishment. In these cases, criminals may be treated with drugs or surgery to reduce their capability to harm others (usually by crippling body or brain in some way), and then sold as slaves able to perform a very limited range of tasks.