Grab this widget and post it on your blog or facebook. Challenge your community to give as much you have. Watch how quickly your tribe can win a battle.
Call+Response: I Gave Widget

Help Rescue Victims of Forced Labor with the International Justice Mission

AMOUNT NEEDED: $6000

Using a sound understanding of local criminal law to prosecute perpetrators, IJM rescues victims of forced labor and brings them into new lives of freedom.

Free Victims of Forced Labor: Strategy

Conduct investigations into forced labor facilities. When a case is compelling, IJM Chennai produces an “Intervention Report” detailing the elements of the crime, which is shared with appropriate government and police officials.

Work with government and police officials to raid the facility and conduct an enquiry whereby the truth of the victims’ situation comes to light and the victims are released.

Continue working with the government after the raid for the care and protection of the victims as well as the prosecution of perpetrators.

Criminally prosecute those who commit forced labor crimes in order to establish favorable authoritative legal precedents. This will help clarify issues in the rarely used forced labor laws.

The aftercare team, in association with appropriate local groups, comes alongside the victims to provide practical support and guidance.

Forced labor is present in most industries in India. By working through the existing public justice systems, IJM Chennai challenges the following industries in their use of forced labor: agriculture, brick kilns, commercial sex industry, domestic service, manufacturing, rice mill factories, rock quarries and silk industries.

IJM brings specialized investigative and legal skills focused on this issue to make sure that the local laws are enforced and the rule of law thereby strengthened. IJM then works alongside government officials operating in accordance with Indian law to bring to an end the tyranny of forced labor in India. The engagement of the Indian public justice system can be effectively accomplished by: 1) preparing overwhelming evidence as to the existence of forced labor crimes 2) bringing the evidence collected to the attention of government officials who are empowered to enforce the laws targeting human trafficking; and 3) persistently engaging with government officials to ensure they carry out the law and provide the measures of relief due to the victims. The aftercare teams then work closely with released victims to ease the transition into freedom, coping with the new challenges faced as a free person and helping secure employment.

KUMAR’S STORY:

Read the story of Kumar, a young boy rescued from slavery in a brick kiln through intervention by IJM.

About International Justice Mission:

International Justice Mission (IJM) 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. Founded in 1997, IJM currently has ongoing operations in Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, India, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru.

In all of its casework, IJM has a four-fold purpose:

1. Victim Relief
2. Perpetrator Accountability
3. Victim Aftercare
4. Structural Change
   

Additional Information on Bonded Slavery:

According to the United Nations, an estimated 20 million people were held in bonded slavery as of 1999. Bonded slavery is the continual labor of an individual forced to work by mental or physical threat. Bonded slaves are owned by an employer to whom the slave or slave’s family is indebted. Bonded slaves are forced to work long hours, often seven days a week, for meager wages, if any, attempting to pay back a debt that increases at exorbitant interest rates. In reality, there is no way to repay the debt and the laborer becomes essentially a slave for life. Many bonded slaves are children who are beaten and abused if they do not fulfill the extreme expectations of the owner.

How does bonded slavery happen?

When a personal or family emergency requires immediate funds the individual or family is forced to work for very little or no pay in exchange for a small loan. Because the debt increases faster than they’re paid a slave is trapped without hope of ever paying off the original debt.

Slavery and forced labor remain deeply entrenched systemic problems despite the fact that the substantive laws in India outlawing forced labor are clear. The primary factor that allows slavery to persist is a fractured public justice system lacking the capacity to extend the protections of the law to exploited slaves. Other factors that can increase vulnerability to slavery for victims include the disempowering social structures of dowry, poor credit access and inadequate social security.

Kumar’s Story:

When he was only five years old, Kumar suffered great loss: His father died suddenly and his mother abandoned him after the death. Orphaned and alone, Kumar went to live with his uncle, who did his best to provide him with some stability and security. But two years after his father's death, Kumar's tragedies were compounded when a corrupt brick kiln owner used a small debt incurred by a relative to illegally conscript seven-year-old Kumar into slavery at his kiln.
The brick kiln was a massive operation that churned out hundreds of hard clay bricks every day. Slaves — children, women, and men — gathered water, sifted sand, molded bricks and hauled them in and out of the sun for the owner's profit. As other children his age were just beginning school, Kumar was initiated to a life of slavery.
Kumar struggled alongside adults at the kiln, bewildered and scared by what he saw. All day, seven days a week, he carried heavy clay bricks back and forth in the kiln as they dried. Every moment was occupied. He woke early each morning to begin laboring at 6:30 a.m. and continued until the evening hours, his hands raw and his body exhausted from the strain of the brickwork.

Held as a slave, Kumar was forced to make bricks every day for the profit of his owner.

“Now I am going to school and studying. I want to become a police officer so that I can catch all the criminals, and at the same time, I can help and protect the good people of our village. I want to earn a good name from the society.” — Kumar

Kumar’s owner hurled abusive threats at him and the other laborers when he felt they were not working hard enough. “They tortured me so much,” he remembers. “We worked hard and suffered terribly.” Even when Kumar was sick, his owner beat him and dragged him to the kiln.

Though he was only a child, Kumar knew that his situation was wrong. “I wanted to study. I wanted my parents. I wanted to play. At times I would think of all those things,” he remembers.

Kumar was trapped. When another slave at the kiln had attempted to flee, the owner tracked him down and brought him back to the facility, publicly beating him as a warning to others. Kumar knew exactly what awaited him if he attempted to run away. There was no escape: “The owner will not let us go. I did not think about freedom.” But one day, everything changed for Kumar.

IJM's Bangalore office had discovered the slavery in the kiln and documented evidence of conditions there. Based on this evidence, IJM partnered with local government authorities and police to plan a raid of the facility to release the slaves.

The team arrived in the morning and entered the kiln. Each slave was asked to tell his or her story to a government official.

Word of the intervention quickly spread throughout the area to other kiln owners, many of whom also relied on the stolen labor of slaves. As a ripple of panic passed through the slave owners, a wave of hope came to Kumar and the other slaves: "When I heard that somebody is going to release me from here, I felt very happy," he remembers.

While IJM provided support to the government officials documenting the crimes at the facility, owners of other kilns illegally using slave labor began to arrive on the scene, yelling threats at the workers testifying. But with boldness and courage, Kumar and the other slaves continued to speak the truth to the government official responsible for documenting the situation and certifying their status as emancipated slaves.

IJM staff ensured that Kumar and the others received official government documentation proving their status as former slaves and brought them to a safe location. After two years were stolen from his childhood, Kumar was finally free.

The next day, while IJM staff began to compile evidence to pursue the prosecution of the slave owner, aftercare staff brought Kumar back to his native village. There, Kumar began a new life.

IJM helped Kumar enroll in school, where he quickly began to make up for lost time. After completing several grades at an accelerated pace in the school specifically for former child laborers, he is now continuing his studies in a mainstream school.

Kumar enjoys riding his bike and tending to the goats he was able to purchase through the special financial assistance the Indian government provides emancipated slaves. Today, Kumar's life is one of hope.

Because of faithful partnerships, IJM has brought freedom and long-term support to thousands of former slaves like Kumar. But many more are waiting for release.