After nearly 157 years of slavery abolition in the United States, voters in five states where slavery is still legal as a punishment for convicted criminals will decide whether to outlaw the practice entirely next month. Some loopholes in US laws have resulted in the spread of a different type of slavery, "forced labour by people convicted of certain crimes."
According to CNN, when slavery was outlawed in the US in 1865, the 13th Amendment included one exception.
"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," the amendment reads.
"The penalty has remained on the books in more than a dozen states, even though it hasn't been enforced since the Civil War, the news outlet further reported.
But next month, voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Vermont, Oregon, and Tennessee will be given the opportunity to exorcise the punishment from their states' constitutions once and for all, according to a CNN review of pending ballot initiatives.
The Washington Post reported, "If passed, the proposals would wholly abolish slavery in those states, though they would not automatically change protocols on prison labour or inmate pay. While not all states have constitutions that explicitly permit slavery and involuntary servitude as criminal punishments, only three have passed similar legislation to remove the exception - Colorado was the first to do so in 2018, followed by Nebraska and Utah two years later."