The Investigation That Changed Everything
In 1994, Gary Haugen was a young US Department of Justice lawyer sent to Rwanda to lead the United Nations investigation into the genocide. He spent months documenting the murder of 800,000 people in 100 days.
What he saw did not just haunt him. It revealed something he could not unsee: the poorest people on earth had no access to justice. Not because laws did not exist, but because nobody enforced them. The legal systems that were supposed to protect the vulnerable were broken, corrupt, or absent.
Haugen returned to the US and quit his government job. In 1997, he founded International Justice Mission (IJM) with a simple premise: the poor need lawyers, not just charity.
Rescue Operations
IJM worked differently from traditional aid organizations. They partnered with local law enforcement to conduct rescue operations -- physically removing people from situations of slavery, trafficking, and forced labour. Then they prosecuted the perpetrators.
Their model was controversial. Critics said a Christian organization had no business conducting law enforcement operations. But the results were hard to argue with.
In Cebu, Philippines, IJM's intervention reduced the commercial sexual exploitation of children by 79% over four years. In Chennai, India, they helped free thousands of people from bonded labour in brick kilns and rice mills. In Guatemala, they increased the conviction rate for sexual violence against children from 1% to over 30%.
What Haugen Learned About God
Haugen said Rwanda showed him that God cares about justice, not in the abstract but in the specific: "God is not indifferent to a child being trafficked. And if God is not indifferent, then I cannot be indifferent."
He wrote in The Locust Effect that violence is the biggest obstacle to ending poverty. People cannot lift themselves out of poverty if they can be enslaved, robbed, or assaulted with impunity. Justice is not separate from mercy. It is the foundation mercy stands on.
What This Means for You
Service is not only feeding people and building houses. Sometimes it means fighting for the systems that protect them. Justice work is spiritual work. When you stand between a vulnerable person and the forces that exploit them, you are standing where God stands.