by EDEE KULPER
Special to the Islands’ Sounder
Ten years ago I heard a man speak. It has stuck with me ever since. His name is Gary Haugen, and I’ll paraphrase what he said, or at least how I remember it.
“I was a U.S. Department of Justice attorney working on human rights abuses and police misconduct cases. One day I looked around and thought, ‘There are plenty of attorneys, but who is out there actually rescuing people? There are people donating money, organizing food drops, and providing medical help. But is anyone tracking down the vulnerable, voiceless people who are being held against their will and forced to do unspeakable things?’ I decided that’s what I needed to do.”
And he did. He left his job, started an organization called International Justice Mission (www.ijm.org) and began the risky business of getting in good with bad guys in order to take back adults and children forced into slavery in developing countries plagued by poverty. I will never forget his promise to his wife and kids: No matter how intense his international thug pursuits got, he would be back at the dinner table every Sunday to have a normal meal with his family.
In the 18 years since Haugen founded IJM, his global team – hundreds of lawyers, investigators, social workers and community activists – has undertaken countless raids of brothels, factories, quarries and fields. Never without thousands of tedious hours spent researching the victims and bolstering their cases to win over local authorities; “to move the police and the courts from being the protectors of the perpetrators to being the protectors of the children.”
What got me thinking about all of this again was an off-hand comment made by a friend. She mentioned one day that Vancouver was one of the biggest cities for human trafficking. I was shocked. We had just moved to Orcas.
“Not in our back yard?!” I thought. In my naivete I had assumed it was mainly a problem in countries like Thailand and Cambodia. Oh no. Since then I’ve learned that it is rampant in our own cities: Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, New Orleans, New York, you name it. According to one of Haugen’s books called “Terrify No More,” there are more slaves in our world today than were extracted from Africa during 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade.
“In a world of so much acute suffering … for what purpose have you and I been granted so much?” Gary asks.
Nine-year-old Meriel Griffith is answering that call. She has decided to organize her own fundraiser – a garage sale to help her raise as much money as she possibly can to send to IJM. When asked, “If you worked for IJM and could rescue 20 children, 80 children,” Griffith interjects, “If I rescued one child, that would be good.”
That is precisely Haugen’s sentiment. “This is why we are here. If we are not going to go after this, who is? …We are inspired by God’s call to love all people and seek justice.”
As for the rest of us, Haugen says, “I hope we can say that we showed up, and that we showed up on time.”
Show up on May 9 at 9 a.m. at Sunset Avenue off North Beach Road. Your joyful giving will rescue lives.
To see IJM’s excellent ratings by a charity evaluator, go to www.charitynavigator.org.
