4 billion people around the world
are not protected by their justice systems.
Mariamma has been working in a brick factory for years.
Mariamma can’t leave the brick factory. She is beaten by the man who owns her. Everything about this is completely illegal, but the man who has enslaved her makes no effort at all to hide what he is doing — because, far from the headlines, exploiting an impoverished woman like Mariamma is ordinary.
More than
40 million people are held in slavery worldwide.1
in Mariamma’s words:
“The cruelty — we have to take it,” she explains, “because we don’t have money or power. The police will believe [our owner] and not us because we are slaves…”
Laura is only 10 years old, but she already knows that every day holds reasons to fear violence.
in the slum where she lives,
She is on her way to the community latrine when she is sexually assaulted by a neighbor.
The walk to school isn’t safe:
She is on her way to class when she is assaulted again — this time by a different neighbor.
And even her home isn’t safe:
She is trapped in a nightmare of relentless abuse from her own father.
1 in 5 women around the world is a victim of rape or attempted rape.2
Susan is a Ugandan grandmother who is violently thrown from her home by a man determined to take her small patch of land.
It’s a nightmare that’s so common many women in her community expect it.
When Susan leaves her home for a night to attend a wedding in another village, her neighbor arrives at her home and literally tears it down, so he can take the little patch of land it sits on for himself.
An elderly woman already bearing the heavy burdens of trying to scratch out survival for herself and her grandkids, what can Susan do?
every year,
5 million
people are victimized by forced evictions, and millions more run off by more powerful neighbors.3
Thrown from her home, she has no shelter. She has no place to grow food. She has no garden for income.
40% of widows in her community have experienced or been threatened with property grabbing.4International Justice Mission was able to rescue Mariamma from slavery, protect Laura
from her abusers, and restore Susan to her home. Learn about IJM’s work.