Serfdom wasn't legally abolished in Russia until 1861. Slavery was technically abolished in the late 1700s, but in some areas serfs were still bought and sold like chattel until the end of serfdom.

The Ottoman Empire legally abolished slavery in the 1880s, but there was still illicit yet tolerated slavery in Turkey into the 1930s.

I think in some areas of the Sahel chattel slavery may still exist as a practical matter. Mauritania didn't legally abolish chattel slavery until 1981, for example, but as in other areas it can take decades for reality to match the law, given the laws were often changed under international pressure rather than reflecting any change to the domestic social order.

Serfdom continued in practice in Russia for decades and often serfs became indebted to the landowners in a form of financial bondage that pretty much lasted until the Russian revolution, where...well things didn't get much better for them.

The fact that serfdom de-facto remained is one of the primary reasons Russia's industrialization lagged the rest of Europe for so long as factories didn't get the initial cheap labour. It was only finally fully picking up steam (pun not intended) when WW1 broke out.

And, today, in the whole middle east everyone, from governments to individual families, keep getting "embarassed" by having it turn that that they're "holding servants". And then it happens again. And again. And again. Daesh/IS "brought back" slavery (which is one reason bringing back terror brides, some of whom exploited slaves while in the middle east, is such a judicial nightmare. What do you do with a legally Australian girl, now a mother of 4, who lived for 2 years in Iraq, bought and sold slaves, exploited some them to "run the household", and killed/worked to death one of them?)

Slavery is abolished everywhere in the middle east ("except" Daesh/islamic state), and yet this keeps happening. Example after example after example:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/06/12/fifas-world-cup-ignores-...

https://www.freedomunited.org/news/repression-modern-slavery...

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/HRBodies...

https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2014/12/domestic-servitude-...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpw5v077nyjo

https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/13/i-was-sold/abuse-and-e...

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/22/united-arab-emirates-tra...

https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/08/24/how-can-we-work-withou...

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2017/11/libya-must-e...

Oh and the royal families keep getting caught in "even more embarrassing" incidents.

Here is Saudi Arabia having a royal murder a slave for perceived insults, then forcing UK governments to allow and forgive the murder (by taking nationals hostage then organizing a "prisoner swap")

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9674420/Saudi-...

Or Qatar:

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200619-qatar-prince-accu...

Or Iranian and Iraqi imams and mullahs selling children, girls, but apparently even including the occasional boy, into child prostitution, functioning as pimps and exploiters:

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/W...

Frankly, these days it seems to be quite normal for countries to just sign whatever treaty anyone wants signed ... and just ignore it. Vilifying anyone calling them out on it as culturally insensitive and in all cases ignoring them.