There are cruel practices in almost every country, including the US or [wherever you are from]. Society evolves over time. Different countries overcome different problems at different points in time, and the time differences are just noise on the grand timeline of history.

The developed world has more or less eradicated slavery, but it was commonplace just 0.5% ago on the human civilization timescale. Some countries eradicated it at 0.4% and others at 0.6%.