Gary Haugen, CEO & Founder of International Justice Mission (IJM), on Protecting People Living in Poverty from Violence.
Gary Haugen is the CEO & Founder of International Justice Mission (IJM), a global human rights organization that works to protect the poor from violence.
The context here is not one of war, conflict or mass atrocities but, rather, the everyday violence present in many low-income and marginalized communities around the globe, such as gender violence, forced labor, human trafficking, sexual violence, police abuse and land theft.
The issue is multifaceted, and so is our conversation. Are the proper laws in place to protect a country’s citizens? Is there political will to protect those who are most marginalized? Are laws being enforced? Are social norms exacerbating the problem?
IJM was founded 26 years ago and today has around 1,500 staff based in 30 offices across the globe. IJM works with national governments and local stakeholders. Their teams are local and include lawyers, criminal investigators, trauma social workers and local advocates.
This episode looks at poverty from an angle of violence prevention. The conversation will inform you and provide insight on IJM’s drive to transform local justice systems to protect those living in poverty.
About Gary Haugen
Gary Haugen is CEO and founder of International Justice Mission. Before founding IJM in 1997, Gary was a human rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, where he focused on crimes of police misconduct.
In 1994, he served as the Director of the United Nations’ investigation in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. In this role, he led an international team of lawyers, criminal prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and forensics experts to gather evidence that would eventually be used to bring the perpetrators of the genocide to justice.
Gary received a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Gary has been recognized by the U.S. State Department as a Trafficking in Persons “Hero” – the highest honor given by the U.S. government for anti-slavery leadership. His work to protect the poor from violence has been featured by Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, the New Yorker, The Times of India, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, the Guardian and National Public Radio, among many other outlets.
He is the author of several books, including Good News About Injustice (Intervarsity Press) and, most recently, The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence (Oxford University Press). Gary was invited to share the themes of The Locust Effect at the annual TED Conference in a talk entitled: The hidden reason for poverty the world needs to address now.