Download Samantha Power's Report on Gary Haugen and IJM from the Jan. 19, 2009 Issue of The New Yorker
In all the world there are only a few courageous organizations that actually take on the hard problems and stick with it until something happens. International Justice Mission is one of them and Gary Haugen, IJM’s president is an admirable and noble man.
A Conversation with Gary Haugen from International Justice Mission on Vimeo.
“When good people do what they can, then there’s great triumph over evil.”
There are 27 million people enslaved in the world today – most of them women and children. Is there any hope for overcoming this human rights crisis? International Justice Mission President Gary Haugen answers common questions about slavery – and shares how we can fight this crime and others that victimize the global poor.
» Download video transcript here .
Q & A Gary Haugen
President/CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM)
I read the article in The New Yorker, but I’d like to know more about IJM’s Christian identity. IJM is made up of Christians who want to be authentically engaged in the struggle for justice, not as an abstraction, but involved in a real struggle on behalf of real people who are victims of horrific abuse and violence.IJM sees itself as part of a long and encouraging history of people who were engaged in the struggle for human rights and justice, and engaged in a very authentic way — so authentic that for most it cost them their lives; and they were motivated in that struggle by their Christian faith. I saw this in my own life when I worked with Bishop Tutu in South Africa. Other examples include Dietrich Bonheoffer opposing the Nazi regime and paying the ultimate price in Germany, and Martin Luther King, Jr. here at home in the Civil Rights era. IJM likewise is made up of Christians who want to be authentically engaged in the struggle for justice, not as an abstraction but involved in a real struggle on behalf of real people who are victims of horrific abuse and violence.
But Christians haven’t always been on the side of justice. I can understand people’s skepticism depending upon their own experience of the Christian faith and their own familiarity with the struggles of history. Unfortunately, there are Christians who are actually on the side of oppression, who are actually disengaged from the struggle for human rights; they’re on the wrong side. Name your struggle for justice; you can probably find Christians on both sides of the equation. But I think those Christians who opposed human rights found themselves on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of their Christian tradition. And so we’re interested in bringing forth the best part of the Christian tradition in our era, which we believe would be on the side of justice.
How does IJM interface with non-Christians, or with those of other religions or spiritual traditions? At IJM, though we are motivated by our Christian faith, we are interested in building a platform of common ground that allows the maximum number of people to get on board in opposing issues that everyone agrees violate basic human rights. And I believe that the victims of human rights abuses are not so interested in parsing the philosophical or theological niceties of our various motivations; what they’re interested in is whether or not we are willing to actually do something to help them. We cannot engage this struggle without people of good will from diverse backgrounds, philosophies, traditions, and so we need all the help that we can get. At IJM, we hope that we can be authentic about our Christian faith while at the same time not having that be an obstacle to others who share the same objective of helping the people who are victims of abuse. We find that most people who have a different faith than ours are not upset by the fact that there are Christians who care about human rights and are trying to do their best to fight injustice. No, they tend to be upset with those Christians who are disengaged, or those who try to manipulate their involvement for some other purpose.How do those you help or collaborate with regard your faith-based motivation to seeking justice? The vast majority of the victims that we serve don’t share our faith, and most of the people we find ourselves collaborating with – like local police and officials – also do not share our faith. And we find that most people who have a different faith than ours are not upset by the fact that there are Christians who care about human rights and are trying to do their best to fight injustice. No, they tend to be upset with those Christians who are disengaged, or those who try to manipulate their involvement for some other purpose. Let me put it in context: I don’t think Jews suffering through the Holocaust were upset that there were a tiny, tiny minority of Christians who actually stood up and did the right thing. They’re rightfully enraged about Christians who did nothing, Christians who did the wrong thing, or Christians who acted like they were doing the right thing but were actually doing it for a pernicious purpose.
In 2009, do you feel that the call to justice has changed? Does it look different today than it did in past decades or centuries? In the Christian tradition – and especially as it connects theologically to the Hebrew tradition – the call to the work of justice is thousands of years old. It is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Prophets who in many ways have issued the most clarion calls in the Christian and Hebrew scriptures. What does change from time to time is the nature of assaults upon the dignity of the human being, and then the various things that make it hard for Christians to be on the side of justice. In one era it might be that they’re a small powerless minority and so there’s not much that they can do, or they’re a part of power and they’ve been corrupted into the culture that’s actually perpetrating some of the abuse, or they’re completely isolated from the abuse because they’re living in some bubble of prosperity or alienation from the community where it’s taking place. So, there are various boundaries of compassion, selfishness, or fear that Christians have to transcend in various eras. In every area you find that Christians are trying to struggle against injustice. They’re almost always talking about their forbearers who in other times and other places were doing the same thing, and they’re trying to find inspiration and direction in that.
Gary, what do you say to those who would categorize IJM as a group of well-meaning cowboys? Well, cowboy can mean different things to different people. If it means that you are doing risky things out of an excess of enthusiasm, then I do think we’re up against a bit of a problem because we are trying to intervene in situations of great violence in a very committed way. We acknowledge that there are risks associated with confronting perpetrators of grave violence. There are risks when we accompany the witnesses who have to testify against their perpetrators. There are risks when we provide safety for victims of abuse who are threatened by retaliation from perpetrators. So then the question becomes: Are we irresponsible about that? And I don’t think you could call us a group that is eager to bear the consequences of stupid mistakes, but actually highly experienced professionals who know the real costs of those mistakes and the preparation that’s necessary to prevent them. After you rescue many, many victims of abuse, the yearning arises to prevent it from happening to others in the first place; and then you realize that there’s a structure in society that is supposed to prevent the weak from being abused by the strong – and that structure is law enforcement, rule of law.
Gary, what do you mean by structural prevention? After you rescue many, many victims of abuse, the yearning arises to prevent it from happening to others in the first place; and then you realize that there’s a structure in society that is supposed to prevent the weak from being abused by the strong – and that structure is law enforcement, rule of law. IJM sees that the long-term and sustainable future of human rights and dignity for the poor is to be guaranteed by the structure of law enforcement, backed by the State, and protecting the poor person and his or her property and thereby preventing them from being abused; so that the global poor will never know what it means to be a slave. That for us is structural prevention.
