Last week, we talked about the work of Love 146, one of the organizations we’re raising money for this Easter. Thanks to ten generous women, your comment on this post is worth $5.25 to Love 146.
It’s also worth another $5.25 to International Justice Mission, whose work we’ll focus on today. (So I’m comment-trolling again: please, leave a comment! It only takes a moment, and it’s worth money to both of these worthy organizations.)
Former U.N. War-Crimes Investigator Gary Haugen founded IJM 15 years ago with the vision of working with local legal systems to secure protection and justice for victims of abuse and oppression. IJM has a collaborative casework model in which their investigators, lawyers, and social workers intervene in individual cases of abuse. They partner with state and local authorities to achieve four goals:
victim relief (getting the victim out of the abusive situation)
perpetrator accountability (ensuring that perpetrators experience the legal consequences of their actions)
survivor aftercare (ensuring that victims have the support and resources to respond to the emotional and physical needs resulting from their abuse and to rebuild their lives)
structural transformation (strengthening communities and local justice systems to prevent abuse of other at-risk people)
IJM’s website is full of stories of undercover operations, brothel raids and stings, and legal victories for victims of oppression. They are hard stories, but hopeful.
In Terrify No More, Gary Haugen tells the story of one such undercover operation in Cambodia in 2003. (If you watch the 15th anniversary video, you will see a short clip of this rescue—and how very young some of the victims were.) I’ve taken Haugen’s words from chapter two of the book and turned them into a found poem:
The Girls of Svay Pak
Rumors of a small, lawless village—
scores of girls, even very young girls,
tiny girls, just
five and six and seven,
sold on an open market
to be used and abused by sex tourists.
We have never seen anything
like this—so many young girls
very young girls
sold and abused
raped and molested
in broad daylight—
such brutal arrogance.
Dozens and scores
of children
young women
held
against their wills,
forced
to serve sex
customers in dingy
cubicles that would look like
a very small bedroom or walk-in closet
to most Western kids—with posters
on the walls and stuffed animals
in a corner—these
are the pens where men come
to exploit them.
A western tourist in Phnom Penh
asks a taxi driver for a ride
to Svay Pak. The driver knows
what the tourist wants
but drives him anyway—
he gets a commission from
the brothel keeper for
every customer he drives
in:
a growing web of protection
around a despicable industry:
the more people who profit from it,
the more acceptance it gains,
the more normalized it becomes until
it becomes just
the way things are.
The massive and routine business
of selling and raping and molesting
children
is just
the way things are
even
among people of
goodwill.
The darkness has grown
that thick,
so thick that dozens
and scores of children
can be openly sold
to pedophiles and sadists and
it is just
the way things are.
Our mission:
to break the deadly
cycle of resignation and
despair,
to prove that it is
possible
to unravel the web
to rescue the children
to send the perpetrators to prison
to change the calculation
about what
is
possible.
*****
This post is part of my Stop Slavery series, a fundraiser for International Justice Mission and Love 146: for every comment, ten lovely women and I will donate a total of $10.50 ($5.25 to Love 146′s aftercare programs for girls rescued from the sex trade and another $5.25 to IJM).
Images courtesy of International Justice Mission.
