International Justice Mission

Through over 20 years of field work, IJM staff have witnessed that in developing countries, violence is as much a part of poverty as hunger, disease or homelessness. When basic criminal justice systems are too broken and corrupt to protect the poor, this predatory violence persists unchecked. Criminals know they can rape, enslave, traffic and abuse the poor without fear of police, courts or the law. By stopping criminals and fixing the broken systems so the entire community is safer, we empower families to build better lives for themselves and their children. Additionally, we seek to fuel a global movement of individuals, churches, governments and other institutions engaged in this fight for justice. IJM seeks to change the way the world understands and addresses global poverty and violence against the poor – providing hope and practical solutions to the problem of violence in order to secure a safe path to prosperity for the global poor in the 21st century.

In the communities where we work, we focus on a specific form of violence plaguing the poor. As we defend individual victims, we learn where the justice system is failing to provide protection—and we develop comprehensive plans to partner with local authorities on ways to improve it. Our day-to-day field operations consist of four strategies to combat violence: 1) RESCUE VICTIMS: We help local authorities find individuals and families suffering from violence and bring them to safety; 2) BRING CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE: We work in local courts to ensure traffickers and other criminals are prosecuted and restrained from hurting others; 3) RESTORE SURVIVORS: We provide trauma therapy and counseling to survivors of violence and give survivors education, training and tools to thrive; 4) STRENGTHEN JUSTICE SYSTEMS: We identify gaps in the systems that protect the poor, and then work with police and courts to address these challenges.

For more than 20 years, IJM global teams have been on the front lines fighting some of the worst forms of violence in Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Southeast Asia. More than 920 IJM staff work through 19 field offices to help combat violence—95% of whom are nationals of the countries where they work. One of IJM’s core values—and the key capacity on which our mission rests—is our ability to build bridges with others. IJM works with government and law enforcement officials, local community-based organizations, and aftercare partners to rescue victims of injustice, restrain criminals, restore survivors and strengthen justice systems. We have also developed rigorous monitoring and evaluation to assess whether our programs are effectively protecting the poor, and how to improve them even more.

IJM is a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization and complies with standards set by the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

More than 49,000 people have been rescued from violent oppression by IJM and IJM-trained partners. In addition to these individual victims, as a result of IJM's work, justice systems in the communities we have worked are holding criminals accountable and protecting the poor right from the start. For example, in 2006, IJM initiated a Gates Foundation-funded operation called Project Lantern in Cebu, the Philippines, to test a powerful question: When laws are enforced and criminals held accountable, are fewer children exploited in sex trafficking? After four years of IJM's partnership with the justice system, independent auditors found a stunning 79% decrease in the availability of children being sold for sex in Metro Cebu. As a result of Project Lantern, thousands of children in Metro Cebu will never be victims of sexual exploitation. Based on this successful model, IJM measured similarly massive reductions in children being exploited in other project areas in the Philippines in 2016.

As IJM brings cases through the local justice system in the communities where we work, our teams are able to diagnose where the justice system is failing to protect the poor. By leveraging this knowledge and building relationships of goodwill with justice system officials, IJM is able to design programs that will dramatically improve the justice system’s ability to protect vulnerable people. Today, through this protective effect of our work, IJM is helping the justice systems in the communities where we work protect more than 150 million vulnerable people from experiencing violence.