Get To Know Us

1994

The United Nations asked IJM’s founder Gary Haugen to lead its investigation of the horrific genocide in Rwanda. As Haugen dug through mass graves and massacre sites, he was struck by the terrible truth that the Rwandans who had perished in the violence “did not need someone to bring them a sermon, or food, or a doctor, or a teacher, or a microloan. They needed someone to restrain the hand with the machete and nothing else would do.”

1997

Haugen and a small team envisioned a new kind of human rights organization: a group that would leverage the skills of criminal justice professionals to protect the poor from violence. Haugen left his job at the Department of Justice to launch IJM with a small DC-based team. They took on cases of desperate violence where impoverished victims could not depend on their justice systems to defend them.

2002

By 2000, IJM established its first long-term field office in Mumbai, where a team of local professionals began partnering with authorities to rescue girls and women trafficked for sexual exploitation. Two years later, IJM Canada was established by Jamie McIntosh, and was the first of five partner offices that shares in IJM's global mission.