International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals work with local officials to ensure immediate victim rescue and aftercare, to prosecute perpetrators and to promote functioning public justice systems.

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» Slavery
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Monday, 30 November 2009

First Person: "As the dawn breaks, the IJM team and local government commence the operation – and, gloriously, at the start of Kaasika’s second day of life, she is freed from a future of slavery."

By Gary Haugen, IJM President and CEO

Having just returned from visiting my IJM colleagues in India, I write with a sense of great urgency. Our teams are relentless in their fight for justice — and lives like Ammani’s bear witness that the battle is one worth fighting.

Ammani is up before the sun, boiling rice over a smoky fire. Her work will stretch on past sunset. She spreads the water-bloated rice on cracked concrete slabs, where she will walk back and forth hundreds of times today, slowly moving the grains so they dry in the bright afternoon heat. This is what she did yesterday, and it is what she will do tomorrow. When her two-year-old daughter cries out for her, the rice mill owner shouts at her to continue working. Ammani is a slave.

Her work hasn’t slowed, despite the fact that Ammani is nine months pregnant. She and her husband have begged the owner to allow her to stay with her mother for the birth – but he refuses to let her leave.

We celebrate that baby Kaasika will never remember what it was like to be owned by another person.

This is the simple reality of oppression in our world: men and women and children, stripped of their lives, liberty and hope by those who hold more power than they. Widows, brutally thrown from their homes; young girls, trafficked into forced prostitution; children, sexually assaulted and left without an ally: They all know something of Ammani’s pain — the ache of violence and of voicelessness.

Forbidden from leaving the mill, Ammani gives birth to a baby girl, assisted by two fellow slaves. They lack even sufficient water to clean the newborn. Ammani names the child Kaasika, taking in the infant’s dark eyes and the matted swirl of black hair crowning her head. She counts the tiny fingers and toes – her precious little girl, born on a concrete rice mill floor.

Weak, Ammani rests that night, her newborn infant cradled between her and her husband, their two-year old daughter at their side. She thinks about what the future will hold for her little girls, and she is afraid.

But as Ammani sleeps, my IJM colleagues in Chennai, India, are awake – and they are making final preparations to conduct an operation at the mill where she is held. They know the owner is a man of great violence, but are not deterred. As the dawn breaks, the IJM team and local government commence the operation – and, gloriously, at the start of Kaasika’s second day of life, she is freed from a future of slavery.

Over the protests of the furious owner, my colleagues rescue 11 men, women and children. Ammani, who hasn’t eaten since giving birth the day before, walks unsteadily alongside her husband and their two-year old daughter, holding her baby girl tightly. The family steps out of the nightmare and into freedom.

Rescued from slavery this summer, Ammani and her family are doing well in IJM’s aftercare program, and plan to purchase goats with their rehabilitation funds from the Indian government.

The reality of oppression is dark, but I am filled with hope that life can be different for this family, and for entire communities crushed by violent oppression. In addition to the hundreds of victims rescued by IJM around the world in 2009, we are seeing signs of lasting transformation. In one of our target areas in the Philippines, we have witnessed a 70 percent reduction in the number of young girls being abused in the commercial sex trade. The battle for justice is fierce – but we believe this is a fight we can and will win.

In fact, the greatest threat in this season is not opposition in the field, but whether we will secure enough resources in 2009 to ensure we can press forward in 2010. It is critical that we do not pull back in this season, but build on the progress we have fought hard to establish. When the IJM aftercare team recently visited Ammani, she carried herself with a quiet determination.

"Now we are brave," she explained. "We have courage to stand again." It has been about four months since her rescue; her husband has a job, and she dreams of opening a small shop. Both parents are excited to enroll their daughters in school when they are old enough.

The hope this family has today testifies unquestionably that this fight is worth it. But IJM can only stand with Kaasika, Ammani and those who wait for rescue if you send us to do this work.

We would be honored if you would consider partnering with us financially. A financial gift will enable us to press forward in the fight for justice.

* Kaasika and Ammani are pseudonyms used for the protection of these IJM clients. Real names and casework documentation are on file with IJM.

 

 

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