Today I read this article from my friend's "Google Reader Sharing" list from International Justice Mission. The organization seeks to "make public justice systems work for victims of abuse and oppression who urgently need the protection of the law." Much of their casework involves rescuing men, women, and children alike from the bondages of sex trafficking, slavery, and other forms of brutality. The article that I read today talked of a recent rescue in which IJM assisted the local Bangalore government in raiding a kiln that had imprisoned 12 people in modern day slavery after the owners had promised the people wages and housing for their work. The raid occurred in the city of Bangalore, India.
Wait. Bangalore? India?
The same Bangalore that I was planning on taking a trip down to in the middle of my trip to India?
Yeah. Bangalore. The same city. The same country. Something hit me as I was reading this article today. I think for a while now I've imagined India to be this dream place where I would experience all the great things the country has to offer. It's not that I had never heard of all the human rights issues that continue to go on or the immense public health problems that continue to affect the country's population, but that until now I had never realized that I would actually be in the proximity of all these things that I read about all the time in the news and on the Internet. Who knows what I will actually see there, but I can only hope that I will prepare myself mentally for a real-world experience and not just the things that my "Frommers" tour book tells me of the country.
Read the article here.
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