International Justice Mission (IJM)

Today we pray for one of our international missions partners - International Justice Missions and their program in South Asia to combat forced labor slavery. They rescue victims, partner with agencies to bring criminals to justice, restore survivors, and work to strengthens justice systems. Here is a recent report form them:

Customers convicted

A specialized child protection court in South Asia convicted 21 customers who paid to exploit minor trafficking victims. This is a significant result, as it marks only the second time that customers have been convicted and sentenced for these crimes in the state. The case was from a rescue conducted in September 2017, where police arrested 30 perpetrators and rescued 26 survivors of trafficking. During the processing of the case, all the customers pleaded guilty and were sentenced. This conviction is the result of significant coordination between police officers, the public prosecutor, and IJM working together to ensure that evidence collection and documentation were thorough and complete. These convictions increase deterrence among customers, because they demonstrate that commercial sexual exploitation will not be tolerated by the justice system.

Human trafficking law course

IJM partnered with the local Police Law Institute to complete an online course on Laws Related to Human Trafficking. The course had more than 100 participants, including law students and senior government officials. One of the course modules was “Viewing the Judicial System from the Perspective of Survivors”, and the resource persons for this session were IJM survivor leaders Kashi* and Sadhna* (*pseudonyms). Having survivors lead in the fight against trafficking is crucial to advancing the mission. By sharing their experiences, our survivor leaders encouraged the course participants to adopt a victim-centered approach to dealing with cases of commercial sexual exploitation.

End of Program Evaluation

IJM is in the final phase of a regional End of Project Evaluation to determine the effect of our program on reducing commercial sexual exploitation of children. Please pray for the process of data collection and report writing to complete this last stage of the study. Please also pray that the team will be able to meet with key authorities and officials to discuss the findings of the study when they become available.