Rescue

CHENNAI, INDIA – Yesterday, IJM helped rescue four families from a life of slavery in an Indian brick factory. One of the men said he had taken out a $10 loan from the factory owner 15 years ago. He had simply wanted to visit his sister. He agreed to work in the factory to repay that small advance. But it was a trap. A decade and a half later, he was still working to repay the alleged loan.

Six children – as young as 4 years old – were forced to work alongside their parents, baking bricks under the hot sun and toiling into the night.

BANGALORE, INDIA – This week, a family of six was set free from slavery in an Indian brick kiln. Over the last couple of weeks, several of the siblings had escaped, making the brick kiln all the more dangerous for those who were left behind.

Tricked Once, Trapped For Good

On February 11 2013, IJM Bangalore got a desperate call for help. The caller was a young man named Prasham.* Prasham had escaped from a brick kiln where he and his siblings had been held captive for about six months.

Prasham relayed a terrible story.

CEBU, THE PHILIPPINES – Earlier this week, IJM helped police rescue a 16-year-old girl and two 13- and 14-year old boys who were being sold for sex on Cebu streets. All of them are now safe at a temporary shelter where they will receive urgent care and begin to process what happened to them.

IJM worked with the Mandaue City Police to rescue the children and arrest the suspected traffickers. Andrey Sawchenko, IJM National Director of the Philippines, commended the well-planned operation that brought freedom to these innocent children.

MUMBAI, INDIA – When IJM and police entered the dimly lit lodge in a residential neighborhood of Mumbai, it was not for the first time. The long corridors leading to small rooms were all too familiar. IJM had been here multiple times over the last year, searching for underage girls who, their intelligence suggested, were routinely brought to the lodge and sold for sex. Time after time, the place had been empty.

Rescue At Last

But on February 1, 2013, three girls were inside the lodge. The police worked quickly to secure the premises.

CHENNAI, INDIA – Yesterday, IJM helped government officials in a rural district outside Chennai rescue four families from slavery in a rice mill. The families – including seven children – had been trapped there for as long as five years.

For IJM Kolkata Field Office Director Biju Mathew, it's been impossible not to start the new year with hope, even amidst great darkness: "Here in Kolkata, we have already seen unprecedented action from the government to stop all kinds of rape, from domestic violence to sex trafficking," he says.

CHENNAI, INDIA – Today, nearly 150 children, women and men are celebrating freedom, rescued from slavery this week outside Hyderabad, India. More than 100 women and men – plus seven children as young as 3 years old – received official release certificates emancipating them from slavery in a brick factory.

The men and women shared how they had been physically beaten and forced to work 18 to 22 hours a day – sleeping for an hour or two and then resuming their back-breaking work in the brick kiln.

BANGALORE, INDIA – Today in India, IJM helped rescue 61 people from a life of slavery. Entire families were trapped in the brick kiln, and children as young as 5 years old were forced to work. Exhausted and malnourished, the children, women and men were living in makeshift tents – plastic tarps stretched over bamboo sticks.

When IJM Bangalore discovered that dozens of people were trapped in the brick kiln as forced labor slaves, they took the evidence to the local government.

MANILA, THE PHILIPPINES – Thanks to one remarkable girl, seven more young women were rescued this month from a bar where they had been routinely sold for sex. The youngest was only 12 years old, and all of the girls had been trafficked there when they were teens.

The young women had come from impoverished families, and they thought they were taking good jobs as waitresses where they could earn money to send home. But when they arrived at the bars, they realized quickly that this was not a good job. They would not be earning any money to send home.

CHENNAI, INDIA – IJM helped set 14 people free last week from a rock quarry where they were trapped in a life of slavery. The adults were forced to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It was exhausting manual labor, breaking up massive boulders and crushing rocks into gravel, all by hand. The men and women hardly had time to care for their small children, born into this life and trapped in the quarry.

IJM gathered evidence of the abuse, documenting the families' stories to take to the local government.