IJM News

CHENNAI, INDIA – Four families were rescued from a brick kiln where they were held as slaves and forced to work up to 14 hours a day. At night they slept out in the open; tents made from old plastic and dry leaves kept their cooking pots and clothing dry. Eleven children lived with their parents inside the brick kiln, and most were forced to work just like the adults. All of them said the owner of the factory had forced them to drop out of school.

What Slavery Looks Like

The families had been enslaved at the brick factory for more than three years.

PHONM PENH, CAMBODIA – A police officer spoke to a small band of young women and teenage girls. It was after midnight. Just a few hours earlier, General Sun Ro had led his team of police and IJM support staff to rescue these young women from a brothel where they had been sold and exploited for sex.

"You are now no longer oppressed," General Sun Ro began, urging the young women to take advantage of the opportunities, vocational training programs and aftercare services available to them as sex trafficking survivors. He encouraged them to think and dream about their life in a new way.