Recovering God's Justice—Interview with International Justice Mission President Gary Haugen
WASHINGTON – Human trafficking is considered a bane that nearly all countries in the world roundly condemn. The practice includes forced labor, sexual exploitation and even organ removal, with women and children particularly at risk. Offers of work and better living conditions are often used as ploys by traffickers to get victims to leave their homes.
Rough estimates by the United Nations show that the size of the problem includes 700,000 to 2 million women trafficked across international borders, and up to 4 million trafficked per year within a nation's borders.
At the “Bipartisan Conference on Human Rights” at Georgetown University in Washington last Tuesday, organizers presented several panels, including one on human trafficking entitled “Ending the New Slavery: The Fight Against Human Trafficking.”
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Moderating the panel – which included Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) – was Gary Haugen, President and CEO of International Justice Mission. IJM provides relief to victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery and oppression. The Christian ministry also brings the perpetrators to accountability through legal means, impacts local communities to reduce the risk of such incidents from taking place again, and gives aftercare for the victims.
During a break between one of the discussions, Haugen spoke with The Christian Post about his work with churches and faith groups to fight for justice in the struggle against trafficking, the importance of working with lawmakers, and how Christians can become educated and actively participate in the effort.
The following are excerpts taken from the interview:
Today’s event is here at Georgetown and you’re getting the opportunity to speak to a lot of students. Sen. Brownback said was that he was encouraging people to be challenged by what is going on in terms of human trafficking. For Christians, what do you hope to ask them on this issue?
I think first of all, it’s to recover a sense of passion for God’s own justice and to follow Him in that passion actively in the world. Previous generations of Christians have taken the gospel to the ends of the earth. The generation after World War II took food, medicine and housing to the poor around the world. God is mobilizing the next generation to do the work of justice around the world, and what I hope young people of Christian faith sense is that God desires to do something new and powerful with this generation that will build His Kingdom through justice around the world.
How important is it to work with government figures? I’ve seen that in your board of advisors you have Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA). How important is it to unite with politicians who are also pursuing these efforts. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) are both here. How important is it to engage them?
They are representatives of the American people and they become stewards of the power the American people grant to them. Part of our priority is to give these conscientious leaders a way to steward that power in a way that brings justice that rescues the oppressed. They are actually eager to do that but they want to know that their voting constituents back home care about these matters because frequently we go up to Capitol Hill and we’ll explain some terrible issue of human rights and injustice taking place and they say, “I know it sounds terrible, but I don’t really think the people back home care about that.”
What I hope is that people of faith will stand up and likewise tell their representatives that “No, we care about these things. We care about these things because we care about the world the way God does and we care about justice the way that God does.”
How is your organization working actively with faith groups and churches to promote this cause of IJM?
We have a robust program of education in churches that involves providing materials for Bible studies, for youth groups, preaching resources on God’s Biblical passion for justice and how the work of justice can be included in the global witness of the Church. So we are eager to call Christians to pray with us for these matters, to sign them up as prayer partners on our website and they get an e-mail every week of urgent cases of injustice that need action. To pray and to pay for the rescue the poor themselves cannot afford and also to begin to do the work themselves. We’ve had lawyers, Christian law enforcement officers, social workers and other volunteers begin to do the work of justice in great places of need overseas but also initiating work within their own communities. Our passion is for going to the Body of Christ and sharing with them the opportunity to do the work of justice in the world, giving the biblical resources to understand that passion deeply and then helping them seize concrete opportunities to do that work.
Isaiah 1:17 says, “Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
We exist as an organization to help Christians understand that deeply but also act upon it with obedience.
Gary Haugen is currently the President of International Justice Mission. Until 1997, he had worked as a senior trial attorney within the U.S. Department of Justice, where he headed a task force to enforce action against police misconduct. In 1994, still with the U.S. Department of Justice, he served as an officer in charge of the United Nation's investigation of the Rwandan genocide. Before joining the Department of Justice, he served in the late 80s with Lawyers Committee for Human Rights to examine the Philippine government's prosecution of human rights abuses committed by the police and military. Other work in the mid 80s included working with Christian leaders for political reform and racial reconciliation in South Africa. Haugen graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, with a degree in Social Studies. He later received his J.D. from the University of Chicago, cum laude, where he was the Ford Foundation Scholar in International Law.
