What do you guys think of the excuse that the country couldn't survive without slavery? And how poor peasants and people in debt in general having to sell themselves / their children to slavery to survive? I've seen stories saying those reasons to be the "positive" side of slavery.
Citizens of my (western, wealthy) country (the united states of america) tend to be highly anti-slavery (and usually focuses on one particular example, rather relevant to our country)... while at the same time purchasing coerced/slave-styled/live-in-workplace/14-16-hour-days-of-work/with-suicide-nets/all-crammed-together made goods :)
Hypocritical? If they know, *and* can do anything about it? Yes. I remember various events, like with the Nike(?) shoes, or some fashion stuff made in Bangladesh, and yet the massive outcry by influential persons didn't make a dent: now the clothes come from thailand, and vietnam, (and any of a dozen others, myanmar got a name change (from burma) so that's an exciting way around consumer attention... not that there ever was any), and all of the shoes and smartphones the world over like to be made in similar places.
Ours is a world full of loopholes, and you're going to be hard pressed to find a valid legal document anywhere in the world *stating explicitly* that somebody is a slave... but people can be effectively put in the same general conditions (poor), for the same general length of time (indefinitely), with the same care for their health and well-being (very little, to none).
And that's nothing to say about the hell that goes into growing our food, and collecting our diamonds: blood is on Avacados and Diamonds alike. Heck, even before the coronavirus stuff: I could barely find foodstuffs made in the USA if I wanted them, let alone consistently, except maybe cheese, and I do like me some cheese if I'm honest. :)
The practices behind these things have largely put their <internal> competitors out of business, and the price for those who wish to avoid being so hypocritical is staggeringly higher than it necessarily should be. It's no way to live, and yet hundreds of millions of people are engaged in a process that is scarcely better than dying... a fate that comes to many of them with regularity.
If you're going to put slavery of any kind in your story... one also has to realize the horrific travesty of the human experience that comes with it, or they'll be making rather light of the topic (which is fine, I guess, you do you :D). The slaves in Rome and Carthage and any of the places along the old Arab Slave Trade did not have a good time, even if there was 'sometimes' a light at the end of the tunnel (in some places, in some conditions, sometimes contracted 'voluntarily'... but that light often enough disappeared due to myriad reasons). There will be divides between treatment by the rich, the moderately rich (your best bet in roman style slavery), and the goddamned and forsaken mines.
Not to forget the classics: sex slaves, and invisible workers, those are really some of the most proud and righteous human activities that have ever existed... as if.
TLDR:
Society has always been Janus-faced about slavery (and everything else). Either you face it, or you look the other way :)