While I understand your plight, posting with images like rolling a stone uphill and making statements like "the only way to win is to stop playing," does absolutely nothing constructive for a conversation so I'd encourage you to refrain from doing so, no matter how "prickly" you've become.
Yes, slavery happens in the Federation. No, it isn't commonplace and no, the average Federation citizen isn't going to know anything about it. Yes, it is illegal and yes, the Federation actively pursues and punishes those who practice it.
The slavery in the Federation is very different than the slavery in the Empire, in that in the Empire it's an institutionalized, heavily regulated, highly religious practice that has more to do with denial of rights and representation than with whips and chains. In the Federation, it's a black market, highly secretive violation of everything the Federation stands for and is very much a forced servitude and human rights atrocity.
However, just as there are examples of slavery happening in the Federation, there are examples of slave abuse, misuse and malpractice riddled throughout the Empire, the State, the Republic and basically everywhere else in New Eden.
I do believe the general notion of slavery in the Empire is largely misunderstand by a vast majority of RPers, a better example would be the Roman Empire where nearly 50% of the people who walked the streets every day and visited the markets were slaves, not the Colonial American slavery where you kept slaves locked indoors or carefully watched in the fields and never let them out, like a bad secret.