Maturing a Ministry

Darrell Bock: 

Welcome to the Table. We discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, executive director for Cultural Engagement at the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. And our topic today is justice. And in particular we're going to take a close look at a particular ministry, the International Justice Mission. And my guest today is Melissa Russell, who's regional president of the IJM. I've learned that you can't exist in the 21st century without thinking about how initials work and abbreviation. So IJM stands for International Justice Mission and she's regional president of North America for the organization. 

And we're going to be talking about justice but not in the way that you normally hear about it when you're into political discussions on race and that kind of thing but a more generic category that has to do with how people are treated and mistreated and abused in a variety of ways around the world. So with that as kind of a short introduction, my standard question to someone who's with us for the first time, it's the equivalent of getting initiated, is what's a nice person like you doing in a gig like this? How did you get into your work in the International Justice Mission? 

Melissa Russell: 

Absolutely. Well, thanks for having me on Darrell. I'm really, really excited to be here. I'm very honored that you asked and honestly, it all started in Texas. So I was living in Austin, Texas, working for the University of Texas at the time. My husband and I lived there. We went to school there. We helped plan a church in West Austin. And one day my pastor was giving a sermon and he was talking about certain types of violence that had happened around the world and that were still happening today. And my undergraduate degree is in journalism. My master's degree is in marketing and communication. I sort of fancied myself fairly well-read on global matters and the issues he was talking about today, modern day slavery in the millions, the rampant abuse of violence against women and children, particularly in developing economy countries, I just was not as familiar with it. 

And he said one thing at the end of the sermon, which was this injustice exists in the world today, talked a lot about how God sees injustice and said, "If you want to see what God is doing in the world today to address these things, you should go to IJM.org." And I did. And I think at the time I think I probably gave a $10 gift. I was like very sacrificial for us. My husband had just started his own small business and so didn't have a lot of money to give but was so moved by the work when I went to the website. So my first action with IJM was actually one of being a donor and then eventually came on staff and have been there now 14 years, almost 15 years. 

Darrell Bock: 

That's great. Well, first of all, let me establish some connections between us. I'm a University of Texas grad as well, and although my wife is far more of a Longhorn than I am, her grandfather was president of the university at one point. 

Melissa Russell: 

Oh, that's wonderful. 

Darrell Bock: 

So she grew up a Longhorn. I guess I got adopted into the family because I was going to marry her and so it was a way of protecting my investment, was going to the University of Texas. 

Melissa Russell: 

Very well. 

Darrell Bock: 

Which worked. So anyway, so let's come back to your story. So you got involved in the International Justice Mission and you've had a variety of roles with them, is that right? 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah, I did. Yeah, absolutely. I started off in Texas. I was working with our donors in Texas. That was my job, really working one on one, connecting their investment with the transformative work going on in the field. And then how long has it been? Since 2010? So about 12 years ago, moved here to DC from Austin to manage a team and then over the years that has just progressed into larger area of responsibility and now I lead all the work here in the US and Canada so the work here in North America. 

Darrell Bock: 

So it says you're regional president. 

Melissa Russell: 

I am. 

Darrell Bock: 

So I guess the next question, so how many regions are there? I mean the world's a big place, so how many regions are there? 

Melissa Russell: 

We have five regions. So there's Latin America, Africa and Europe, South Asia, Asia Pacific, and North America. 

Darrell Bock: 

So I was working through your webpage today and I'm just going to list the countries that got mentioned as I was roaming. 

Melissa Russell: 

Yes. 

Darrell Bock: 

So I'll start. Bolivia, Guatemala, Kenya, Myanmar, India, Philippines, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Cambodia, Uganda. So I mean that's a pretty interesting array of nations from a variety of parts of the world. Well, actually I have two questions. I take it the United States is like a hub in terms of being a really important means of support for some of these other regions but I also think, and people don't think about this aspect of it, they probably think, "Well, if you're dealing with things like human trafficking and violence against women and other kinds of forms of injustice, that that goes on around the world but that's not quite necessarily so prevalent in the United States." And that would be misleading, wouldn't it? 

Melissa Russell: 

It would. I think violence against women and children and human trafficking exists everywhere in every country around the world. The IJM model works in places where there's laws against these things, but the laws are really not being enforced at all. And so we don't have a programmatic focus here in the US because within the Department of Justice, within local police departments, there actually are units in pretty much every major city to address a lot of this imperfectly. So by no means would I say that that's perfect by any means, but our model really is to address those places where there's little to no accountability. The structure exists so we can work within the structure, but we're trying to get people accountable so that you see the prevalence of these reduced significantly. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. I'm going to talk about the model in just a second. I'm just going to rattle off some statistics that I came across. You deal with both labor and sex trafficking issues and 90% of the labor trafficking, which is having people work for next to no wage in one form or another, 90% of that is in what's called the private economy. I found that interesting. On the sex trafficking side, that's a hundred billion dollar a year business. It's a huge number. And another interesting statistic is that 570 million women a year suffer some form of physical violence or abuse. And I did the math on that. I actually looked up the world population to do this. That means that in any given year, one out of every 15 women experiences some form of violence during the year. 

Melissa Russell: 

Absolutely. 

Darrell Bock: 

That to me is an amazing statistic. I mean, just think about the average pew row in your church. That means that someone sitting on that row has probably had that experience in the last year. I just find that absolutely mind-blowing. Another important statistic is that one out of every five women has experienced abuse at some point in her life. So those are just amazing statistics. 50 million people are in some form of slavery in the world. Now I'm taking your statistics at face value here. 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

The point is it's a very prevalent problem, isn't it? 

Melissa Russell: 

Absolutely. It absolutely is. And one that actually with specific and focused measures, especially on the economic side, can be really reduced significantly. Yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. So let's talk about the model that you have because I imagine that most people say, "So how do you deal with something so vast?" In fact, in one spot I noticed a little conversation that said, "How in the world can an organization like yours attempt to tackle something so large?" And in fact, I think the word audacious was used to describe even conceiving of the attempt. So next question is how do you attempt it? 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah, well, so here's what I'll say. We are sort of in the third iteration of IJM's work. And I would say from the very beginning, that statement right there has always been said. The initial was, "You'll never be able to rescue one child out of a brothel," or, "One family out of a rice mill in South Asia." "You'll never be able to get a conviction for sexual assault against children in Guatemala. This will never happen." And I mean truly first and foremost, I think all things are possible with God, particularly a God who loves justice and loves to bring order to chaos. And so for us, I'll take trafficking for example. It really is a crime of economic opportunity. Someone somewhere is taking someone who's vulnerable, you could say children or women, and exploiting them for sex or for labor. And that's because laws in those areas are not being enforced. 

It's not that laws don't exist in the places that we work. They truly just are not being enforced. And so if you can work in the community working on investigations, going undercover, working with the local police to conduct a rescue, working with local prosecutors to hold traffickers and owners responsible, if you can do that, it's very difficult, especially in the beginning, you certainly come up against corruption and you come up honestly against hopelessness but if you continue on in that process, you don't actually have to hold everyone accountable, you just have to hold enough people accountable where you make the cost of doing business too high to continue in that way. So you change the system through accountability. 

And so that's really the reason you won't see the same scale of trafficking in Canada or the United States or the UK or Australia and other places, is there are laws and there is law enforcement and people are accountable. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it's a lot harder to find than in places where laws aren't being enforced at all. And so please feel free to pull on any thread there, but I mean that's the real simple equation, hold people accountable and they will start doing business a different way. 

Darrell Bock: 

So you said there were three levels. The first step is, "Well, you aren't even going to get one successful action." I'll just characterize it that way. What was step two? 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah, so I would say, our first 10 years was just proving that it was even possible to provide victim relief, people who become survivors and can you even get this done? So that was really our first 10 years. I'd say we were able to prove that was possible. And you listed all the places where we work. And that is by strategic design because this is a model that has been developed and we want to be able to say, "It doesn't just work in Guatemala but it also works in the Philippines, it also works in India. And it doesn't just work in labor trafficking, it also works in sex trafficking, it also works in sexual assault." So various case work types in various regions to prove out the model, if you hold people accountable. That second stage of our work really was, "Okay, can we prove a model where not only you can rescue people out of violence and oppression, can you reduce the prevalence?" 

It started in 2005, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave us a grant where they wanted us to measure that. And that was the first time for us to measure the reduction of the prevalence. Did the number of children in the Philippines who were sold for sex, did that actually reduce? And so we measured that over a number of years and after seven years we found you actually are able to reduce it by up to 79% in strategic areas just by holding people accountable. So that was our second stage. Can you reduce the prevalence? If you actually rescue people, if you hold them accountable, are you able to reduce that? 

And we are now in our, I would say, IJM 3.0 which is, "Okay, we have this model. It works, it works in different places and different case work around the world. Now how do we scale that? How do we actually empower others to take this thing that God has entrusted with us, boil it down, teach it, share it? How do we get national governments more engaged in adopting the principles?" And so that's the stage we're in now and we do have a pretty audacious goal by 2030 to rescue millions and protect half a billion people. 

Darrell Bock: 

Oh wow. So I guess I would say the first stage was just to establish the credibility of what it was that you were doing. 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah. And honestly, truly I would say just to prove that it was possible just to even provide victim relief. Could you get one child out of the brothel? It's so corrupt, it's so pervasive. Everyone said it couldn't be done in Cambodia. And so really just establishing the possibility I would say was IJM 1.0. 

Darrell Bock: 

And then the second step is kind of measuring, "How is this working? Is it actually working, et cetera?" Which actually kind of deepens the credibility because it shows not only that it can be done, but at what the situation is and what the pace is. And now that you've established those two things in place, this third step is saying, "All right, where else can we do it and how can we do it in more places?" Is that kind of the last step? 

Melissa Russell: 

Yep, that's exactly right. How can we do it in more places and how do we get it out there the fastest? I'm coming out of the pandemic, we could talk about a vaccine. There's one thing to develop a vaccine and I would say that's a lot. If you were to think of IJM's model as a vaccine against violence, especially in developing economy countries, we have the vaccine, we know that it works, now we're trying to be the organization... How do you distribute that vaccine at scale? And those are two different organizations. We'll still obviously continue developing it. We still are doing the work in the field, but we are trying to figure out, "How do we scale this work even to places that we're currently not, how do we give this to partners? How do we share it with national governments at scale?" So that would be the at scale part is what we're working on now. 

Darrell Bock: 

So I kind of have two questions. I'm trying to decide which direction to go. Let me go to the one direction first. I noticed in doing this list, I sometimes think about missions in the 10/40 Window and I think in particular about places like the Middle East and those kinds of places where some of these issues are also a very big deal. And yet I can look at this list of nations and go, "Well, yeah it's Asia, it's Africa, it's Latin America, but the Middle East seems to be one of the places that would be a challenge." Is that a fair look at what you've got here? 

Melissa Russell: 

Let's take Sharia law, what we're working on is actually enforcing the laws on the books. We're not going to want to have all of those laws enforced. The IJM model in that way at this point is not where it would best be applied. And so there does have to exist the structure of law enforcement, of a stable government, of laws on the books that you would want enforce. I'm saying in a very specific way. 

Darrell Bock: 

Right, yeah. 

Melissa Russell: 

And so that does not apply right now in the majority of the countries in the Middle East. It doesn't apply in typically post-war countries, the infrastructure is completely absent. We have a model that works and that works where those basic structures do exist, but they're not being enforced. So it's like they don't exist but the semblance of the structure is there. 

Darrell Bock: 

I see. So one of the things that you're looking at is you look at countries is to go, "Do they have, for lack of a better description, the substructure culturally to be able to apply some of the accountability that you're asking for?" 

Melissa Russell: 

Absolutely. Absolutely. Is there a structure with which we can work within to grow accountability? 

Darrell Bock: 

Because your assumption is that without, I'll say it this way, the indigenous cultural support for the effort, you're not going to get anywhere. 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah, it's not to say you couldn't see change, but in the places where there is the semblance of the structure, there are people who are suffering and in pain and you can maximize and get there super quickly relatively speaking. And so in terms of how do we get to as many people who are hurting as fast as possible, that's one of the things we've learned about our model. I wouldn't say we always have a ton of cultural buy-in, and I should probably establish this, 95% of our staff are national. So when you're in Kenya, 95% of our staff are Kenyan. They're Filipino in the Philippines. So they understand the culture. This is their country, this is their community. They care very deeply about it. 

But when you are living in a place where there is no hope for justice, where actually going to the police, especially let's say in Kenya where we work on police piece of power, is the most dangerous thing that you can do, there's not a lot of hopefulness. And so part of our job is proving that these systems can work, that accountability can happen and really shift that tide oftentimes from corruption to justice systems that actually do see justice. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay, so you told me to pull on threads and every time you give an answer another thread shows up. So I'm still one behind. So let me try this and I'm shifting gears a little bit on you. A few years ago you spoke with us and talked about what you were doing in the organization and in preparing for this, you said things have changed. I'm assuming that the change is the move from category two of measurement to category three of scalability. Am I right about that? 

Melissa Russell: 

That's it, yep. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. So I guess what you're saying to us is a ministry like this has to grow kind of organically and respond as it, one, establishes its own identity and its own approach. And then, two, wrestles with, "All right, how do we do this? Now that we kind of have our hands around what it is that we're doing, how do we apply this effectively?" And that's part of maturing a ministry. 

Melissa Russell: 

We feel like we are stewards of something that makes a profound difference around the world because if you are not safe, nothing else really matters. One of the places girls get assaulted the most in Sub-Saharan Africa is on the way to school or actually in school itself. Sexual assault is one of the largest drivers of AIDS. If you, really in places like Uganda, empower a woman to grow her agriculture business but there's no accountability when someone comes to steal the land from the widow and orphan, all of these wonderful economic, education, health, economic sustainability, all gets undermined by violence. And so that is something to be a steward of. And so for IJM to say, "We have this thing. Oh my goodness, third party evaluators. This is incredible model, how do we get it as many places as possible?" That's a responsibility. We feel highly responsible for it. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay, now everything about that's fast. I'm glad you mentioned orphans and widows because one of the things we do like to do every now and again is just mention how biblically connected this kind of a ministry is. And of course the Bible has a ton to say in many places about caring for the orphan, the widow. I mean the end of James chapter one talks about true religion being showing that kind of care. The issue of how God cares for the oppressed and the marginalized is very clear. The Gospel of Luke does nothing but talk about marginalized people along the way while it's telling the story of Jesus and the gospel. So all that is kind of underneath. Loving your neighbors yourself is kind of a major commandment. It's the great commandment. So all that is underneath everything that's being done here. Let me pull on another thread. So I'm shifting gears on you again. 

Melissa Russell: 

Right. 

Darrell Bock: 

You talked about the challenge of going to the police in Kenya and the thing that struck me when you were initially telling your story was I can imagine there are massive structures in place to prevent an organization like yours from being effective. And that one of the means that's done here, there are probably two that leap to mind, one is the amount of money that is available to these groups to block efforts like the ones you're talking about. So the corruption part if you will. And the second is the non-hesitation to use violence or to apply violence in order to protect the space. So one, have I missed anything? Because those seem to me to be perhaps the big two. And then secondly, how do you get over those hurdles? 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah, corruption in all the places where we work certainly exists and I think part of the IJM model as you're working cases through the system... So if you could imagine a pipe as the justice system, so you've got investigations, you have prosecution and you have aftercare, and as you're pushing a case through the system like water, you get to see where all the holes are. You get to see, "Okay, on the investigative side, do police not have the capacity? Do they not have the skills? Are they benefiting from corruption here? On the prosecution side of it, that actually the laws aren't as they should be. How are judges complicit in enforcing the law?" And aftercare, which is honestly a huge component of accountability. People have to be cared for, they have to feel safe because they are going to have to testify against abusers. And if you're not well cared for in that aftercare process, accountability actually doesn't happen. 

And so are there great services that address trauma? And you don't get to see that unless you are in the system. And typically the places of corruption, whether it's there's money that's benefited, which you're right, that is typically the case, it's not everyone. We use a statistic, it's just again a simple way of saying it, but probably 15% wake up every day, thinking, "How can I exploit the system the most to my personal benefit?" You probably have another 15% that's like, "I feel called to do good and justice in my community." And then the middle 70% is just like whichever way is going to win. "We're not going to put our neck out on the line for anything." 

Not necessarily looking to be exploitive but not going to stick your neck out for that which is good. And so it's knowing by name, it's not a whole system, it's typically we know who those police officers are, we know who that judge is who continually refuses to enforce the law and trying to figure out ways to come alongside and address those capacity issues or those corruption issues. So that is part of the unique model that IJM has, hands on. And then you can delve into those programs that address the wider issues and then you can actually scale through work. 

Darrell Bock: 

So as my mind kind of dives into what you've been describing, it seems to me that there are two pipes, if I can say it that way. 

Melissa Russell: 

Sure. 

Darrell Bock: 

One pipe is the person who's the perpetrator in dealing with them legally, but the other pipe is the victim and how you come alongside them and care for them and in some cases encourage them to step forward with the risk that's involved there, et cetera. And so you're working, if I can say this, both sides of the track at the same time, right? 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah, I mean absolutely. And I will say IJM, because there's no one ministry that does all things all the time, so we have great partners in the field, particularly on the aftercare side. We don't run aftercare homes, we run the counseling typically that goes into trauma focused care. So our social workers are deeply trained in that and embedding that. But we work with great aftercare homes, with great medical services because if you have been sexually exploited for so long, you have a host of healthcare issues that need to be addressed, teaching women and girls economic opportunities for after you're out of the aftercare home. 

And so yes, you could put it into, but it's all part of the same system. So as much as we want to rescue people from slavery and oppression and give them great aftercare and put them into wonderful situations where they can thrive, what you most want is that it never happened in the first place. And so we truly, truly know that if you can provide justice, if you can provide accountability, you create communities where this doesn't happen in the first place, where people actually are free, where people actually are safe, where they don't have to overcome trauma because they never experienced it in the first place. And that is actually our ultimate goal. 

Darrell Bock: 

Interesting. So again, you've given me more threads than I have... I have to give one at a time. Let me ask it this way. So in the effort to try and create this environment where communities, if you will won't, go there, how much of the challenge is making... You gave a model earlier of there's 15% who are involved and could be called on the perpetration side, there are 15% who are trying to counter that, and then there's this vast sea of people in the middle, and in this case the middle is not a complimentary description probably, who are in the middle who just stand back and aren't involved. How much of this is a function, at least in part of, people not even being aware of or have a sense of how pervasive the problem is? 

Melissa Russell: 

That's a great question. Honestly, it depends on the community. So there are going to be some communities where it's so well known. I can think of Cambodia in the early 2000s where literally the sexual exploitation of children under the age of 12 was well known. Everyone knew where to go. But you land in Phnom Penh and people are going to point the way to... Especially if you're a western male who has come in, the expectation is you're there in Cambodia for a reason and as soon as you walk out of the airport, people are going to start directing you to where you can abuse children. That's so well known. I will say, especially I'm thinking of some of our work in South Asia, where we have many of our colleagues who would say, "I lived miles away from this brick kiln or this rice mill or this rock quarry and I really didn't know. I really didn't know." 

I don't think that's the case anymore. I think we have seen so much change in India, so much change in the Indian government who is in so many ways actively looking for and trying to resolve this. They've put some resolutions forward by 2030 that they want to rescue at least 18 million out of slavery and oppression. But that's a huge systems change and that comes after months and years and decades of work bringing this forward, advocacy like you talked about in the beginning, and seeing systems change. So honestly it does depend on the community. I think in some places it's super well known, in other places it may not be, but that's part of the advocacy work that we do to bring that forward. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, I think the first place where I came across this in my own travel and I'm just traveling, speaking and doing ministry and that kind of thing was when I was in Thailand. And I landed in Thailand and you walk into the churches and say, "So what do you deal with as a church?" And some of the churches and ministers I was talking to, this was one of the key issues that they were concerned about as churches. And I'm going, "Man, I can think of thousands of churches that I've been in where this isn't even on the radar." 

Melissa Russell: 

Right, right. 

Darrell Bock: 

People aren't thinking about this. I mean a local church in the US might have an outreach that deals with this and that kind of thing, but it's not something that's kind of in their face, if I can say it that way? 

Melissa Russell: 

Right, right. Their children aren't going missing out of ministry activities because they've been trafficked. 

Darrell Bock: 

Exactly right. So that's when it first hit me that there was something going on at a level that I had absolutely very little idea about before. I mean I think there are lots of people who hear about it and conceive in their heads what it might be like, but they really have no understanding about how deep and pervasive and then how it really is a form of entrapment. You were talking earlier about the care houses that are given for people who come out of these situations. We've done podcasts on that kind of ministry before. 

Melissa Russell: 

Right. 

Darrell Bock: 

And you're also right about the networking part of this, that it really involves many ministries that are focused on different aspects of the problem, working together and being coordinated in their effort in order to be able to actually deal with it. So all of that is significant it seems to me in thinking about this. So let me ask a very basic question. So someone's listening to this and they're hearing about this for the first time, they're back to where you were when you were in the church in Austin and you decided, "I've heard about this, I'm going to give $10 a month." 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

So what would you say to that person for whom this might be getting acquainted with the entire area? 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah, well, first if you listened to the podcast all the way through, we've been talking about some hard issues. We haven't gone into explicit detail, but these aren't actually easy things to turn your eyes to. So first I would say thank you for listening all the way through and I would say there's great hope, right? I think one of the things that would be devastating is if we came on here and I just told you all the horrible things in great detail that happen around the world and the scale at which they happen and just left us there. That actually would be not helpful to anyone. 

The hopeful thing, and especially at this point is there is a model, it does actually work and there is reason for great hope. IJM has existed for 25 years, I've been at IJM for nearly 15 of those and the way and the speed at which I think God is growing this work is one of hope, one that points to a God who cares very deeply for those who are poor, for those who are oppressed, and the God that cares to bring lots of order to chaos. And there are a few things more chaotic in this world than the justice systems in the places where IJM works. And so I think first and foremost I would just want to say there's a lot of great hope to lean into and to be encouraged by. 

Darrell Bock: 

And then I assume that kind of the way your story is, the more you get interested and become aware and the more you pursue understanding this, the more opportunity you see for maybe how you could perhaps get involved? 

Melissa Russell: 

Oh absolutely. I mean absolutely. We are at a critical point where we're trying to scale so certainly the power that exists, particularly in the United States and other developed economy, there's so much power. There's so much power of our governments to engage with other governments. The corporate power that exists here, part of my job is working with transnational corporations who have a genuine interest in removing slavery from their supply chain. The thing is no matter how good your audits are, no matter how diligent you are about trying to suss it out, if the country where your supply chain works, it does not enforce the laws, it's going to find the way. And so we've got Walmart Corporation and Foundation that's actively involved in helping to create sustainable justice systems in the places where their supply chains are because they know that it's going to exist for them if they don't. And so yes, absolutely giving money, the corporation involvement, engaging in advocacy with the government. Obviously we are always hiring and so if you feel called, as we're scaling, we're certainly hiring. So all of those ways are just phenomenal ways to be engaged. 

Darrell Bock: 

Now in the midst of talking about the various threads I've been pulled on, I had a thread on early that I never pulled on that's still sitting and I've remembered it. So that's good. 

Melissa Russell: 

Great. 

Darrell Bock: 

So I'm not full dementia here, but anyway, I've described your work as kind of consisting in four areas. You highlighted the idea of the protection that you try and give to people, but there's the advocacy work that you do, there are the studies that you pursue to kind of understand the area, there's the support that you give, which we've talked a lot about, and there's the rescue part. Talk a little bit about what the advocacy part is because I don't think we've developed that probably as much as some of the other stuff that we've talked about. 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah, I mean we do advocacy everywhere we work in the world. And so as the regional president for North America, we're really engaged in moving corporations so doing a lot of advocacy with corporations and in helping them see they can have a ton of influence. It's one thing when IJM goes to a national government to engage in law enforcement, it's a totally different ballgame if you have high powered corporations also engaging in that conversation with you. It moves the ball a lot faster. So that's a form of advocacy. We work a ton with the US government. In terms of aid, there's something called the Trafficking in Persons Report that the state department puts out. And if countries do not show sustained effort in improving their trafficking in persons, it makes them ineligible for certain aid from the US government. And so we work with US government on that. 

But of course, again, it's all pointing to protection. It's all under the umbrella of protection. It is not the responsibility of IJM, it is not the responsibility of a corporation. There is one entity that has the responsibility for the protection of citizens and that is the national and local governments. And our job is not actually to be there forever. Our job is to create the structure so that national governments own it and we actually do pull out. And we do pull out. We pull out of countries when our model starts to work in the case work that we are focused on. And so our teams in the field are also doing advocacy. They're doing advocacy with the local government, again, for law enforcement, for accountability, for making laws actually are correct on the books. So it's all advocacy. Truly, so much of what we do is advocacy. We're just pulling different levers based on the countries that we were in. 

Darrell Bock: 

And you also alluded to this earlier and I meant to deal with it and I'm coming back to it as well. You mentioned how many people that work with your organization are local and understand the culture that they're in, et cetera. So I guess my question is, so how does it work? You go into a country, you find some local people who are interested in the area and begin to talk to who? The government, the key corporations that are operating in the country, et cetera? Is that how you get started in a country? 

Melissa Russell: 

That's absolutely how you get started. We typically do an assessment. We go in, we talk to local government, we talk to stakeholders. We're trying to figure out where are the gaps. We initially do what we would call as a prevalence study. So based on the type of case work, which involves investigations, and this is critical, it costs money to do this but what you have to be able to show is that you have reduced the prevalence. We don't just want to measure our activity. IJM is not an activity only based organization. We are measuring impact. Ultimately, are fewer abused after the activities that you have employed? And so our assessments typically involve that initial stakeholder conversation, assessments and then if we've decided to go, we're going to do a baseline prevalence study so that we're able to show the effect of the work typically 3, 5, 7 years down the line. And that's how we do it. Yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

When you talk about a case study, is that kind of what's involved in that or is a case study something different? 

Melissa Russell: 

Well, so a prevalence study is really just measuring a prevalence of the crime. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. 

Melissa Russell: 

And it's just getting a baseline. How many children in this area are being sold for sex based on undercover investigations? And again, it's typically involving a third party so that we can have a neutral assessment of how are we measuring this? We're going to do an end line study. So we do a prevalence study and then we do an end line prevalence study to see it if we've been able to reduce the prevalence of the crime. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. Now it strikes me that this kind of work is not cheap, that there is a cost associated with it because research is one of those tricky areas. It pays off but you also have to pay for it. So am I right about that? And I'm assuming that this grant that you received, and I'm assuming you've received other grants since, really helps to underwrite a lot of the work that you do. 

Melissa Russell: 

The grant that we received initially from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that required us to measure was great for us because again, if you're spending money on measurement, for us at the time, it meant we weren't hiring more investigators, we weren't doing more rescue operations. And that was a really difficult equation for us. But the foundation mandated, they said, "No, we are giving you money specifically for this because what you want to be able to show is a model." If we had not done that, if we had not done that, there would be no way we would be able to scale. There would be no way to actually say to the world, "Here is this thing that we do that really works, that addresses an issue that is seen so widely in so many different communities, in so many different types of case work around the world." 

And so forever indebted to the Gates Foundation for requiring that level of rigor it is a standard for all the places that we work because we need to be able to show impact. And honestly, donors demand that you see impact. The donor of today, especially sophisticated donors who want to be wise stewards of their money, they want to know that this work is making an impact. And so in terms of direct relief, it could be high in terms of number of people directly really, but we are measuring protection. Not only how many people are you directly relieving, but how are you changing the system so that actually this many people are protected. So we've rescued and relieved over 76,000 people, which is quite wonderful and amazing and we celebrate that but we're protecting over 7.8 million people currently in our case work areas, where the justice system works and the prevalence is reduced significantly where people aren't being abused. Our goal is 500 million. So we're on our way to that. That is audacious, but we've got a plan. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, you were going where I was in the process of doing the math and trying to figure out. So how much is left? A lot. And well, I want to thank you for taking the time to walk us through the work of the International Justice Mission and just the area of labor and sex trafficking and what it involves and how this ministry's connected to it. It's really terrific to hear what you all are doing and it's really just a pleasure and an honor for us to be able to share with people what y'all are doing. 

Melissa Russell: 

Well, thank you so much for having me. Thanks for asking great questions. I really appreciated it. It's been a wonderful conversation. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yes, I very much agree and we thank you for watching the Table. We hope you'll join us again soon. If you want to hear or see more podcast, you can go either to voice.dts.edu/tablepodcast or hendrickscenter.dts.edu and that will put you on our Hendricks Center page and then the Table podcasts are prominent on that page. So we thank you Melissa, again for being a part of our day and really enlightening us in this area. I really do appreciate it. 

Melissa Russell: 

Yeah, thanks Darrell. Thanks for having me. 

Darrell Bock: 

And we thank you for joining the Table and we hope you'll join us again soon.