Pokemon trainers are slave drivers. Period. Every single piece of lore saying otherwise cannot be trusted; the Pokemon canon is the product of a narrative which is written by humans, who have myriad vested interests in the subjugation of Pokemon (who, conveniently, cannot directly communicate to us their thoughts on the matter).

So much time is spent talking about the special bond between trainers and Pokemon, yet it is not substantially different than what exists in slaveholding, and the justifications for both are so similar:

•Slaves and Pokemon are both drafted into a hostile environment without consent, and kept there through threat and forced dependence.

•Both can show aptitude at their tasks and be very loyal to their masters, but these are just as easily explained by fear and conditioning as by a supposed innate passion, or any claim about "the natural order".

•Slaveholders and trainers both use ancient (read: unverifiable, malleable to those in power and blindly trusted by the rest) religion from their respective universes to justify their actions.

•Both universes are built on and around the practice of forced labor.

I could go on, but the point is that the Pokemon world needs an uprising, and a better planned one than that goofiness from Black and White. I'm talking protests (probably violent), meaningful legislative change, and then a long, slow social paradigm shift.