Freedom

This weekend in DC, IJM will host the annual Global Prayer Gathering. Like the name implies, people will gather together from all over to pray for IJM's work around the globe. Each of the Field Office Directors from IJM's 14 international offices will fly in to lead participants in prayer for the unique needs of their particular field work. Part of my role as a Community Relations intern has been preparing our "prayer room" with slideshows and power point presentations, planning and producing the gifts for the participants who will visit our room, and working with my Field Office Director to put together stories and speeches. Additionally, our director will speak at one of the main group sessions and conduct a live video interview with one of our victims. I have had the privilege of writing the story and getting to meet this endearing and inspiring individual: Madhaav.

Madhaav is twelve years old. Reserved and bashful at first, it doesn't take long for his big smile to light up the room. Last fall, IJM investigators found Madhaav working in a rice mill, day and night, earning about a quarter--yes, 25 cents--each week. Instead of going to school or playing with boys his age, he was forced to lay out rice paddies to dry and work in the machine room alongside adults. His parents and older siblings also worked at this rice mill and the one across the street. The entire family was being forced to work to pay back small loans the father and older brother had taken out; they were not free to leave the facility nor seek additional work to pay back the loan. When his grandfather passed away, the family had to leave one member behind as human collateral to ensure their return--Madhaav stayed in the rice mill. Their debt continued to increase because they were forced to "borrow" money to pay for basic expenses, like additional food necessary to survive and medicine. The women feared the owner's sexual advances, and the men were helpless to defend their wives or own dignity because of the owner's abuses towards them and apathy towards the law. Though he was only a child and also blind, Madhaav was forced to work tirelessly alongside the other forced laborers. When IJM investigators met Madhaav, he told them that he wanted to be rescued from the rice mill because he wanted to "see the world."

The IJM team put together a compelling case and presented the evidence of forced labor to the local authorities. A rescue operation was planned and executed successfully; Madhaav and fourteenother laborers from the two rice mills were presented with official release certificates granting them freedom. Today, Madhaav lives happily with his older sister and her husband.

Last week, I got to visit him in his village with one of our aftercare managers. (After victims are released from a facility, an IJM aftercare manager is assigned to each family. The family receives regular visits from this IJM social worker for the next two years--guiding and supporting their gradual and stable reentry into a free society.) I had read through all of the victim statements taken by the investigators and pored over the many reports detailing the rescue operation. I had in fact written a case narrative summarizing the entire case from the first phone call referral to the current aftercare of each family to the nascent legal stages. I had already submitted a story about Madhaav to Headquarters. But as I sat on the hard floor of a tiny hut with a roof thatched together with twine, thin sticks and palm leaves, I heard Madhaav's story like it was the first time.

I was there with my Field Office Director to meet Madhaav and ask if he would be willing to come in and share his story before a video camera, to be broadcast at the Global Prayer Gathering. So I scribbled down notes in my moleskine, translations whispered by a colleague and dear friend. But I didn't need translation to understand the bond between Madhaav and his IJM aftercare manager, the steady hand placed gently on Madhaav's shoulder as he sat back down on the mat after standing to pantomime the motions he was once forced to perform, raking and moving the rice paddies. I didn't need words to smile and make funny faces at his younger twin brothers and cousin, three small boys in the first grade who proudly counted to ten and recited their fractured ABC's as they struggled to sit still, flanked by their mothers and older siblings sitting quietly to observe these strange outsiders asking Madhaav so many questions about a hard past. When we asked what Maadhav remembered about the owner of the rice mill, his permanently unfocused eyes shifted downward and his thoughtful silence spoke more than words ever could.

Love, laughter, fear--these cut quickly across culture and circumstance.