Criticism
IJM’s work of rescuing allleged victims from brothels has encountered criticism. Many brothels employ adult, non-trafficked workers that view sex work as the only means of supporting their families, due to lack of other opportunities, and return to the brothels. Some sex-worker advocates believe that the police involvement stimulated by IJM creates worse conditions for the women who want to be employed in the brothels.
IJM claims to have a protocol for their foreign police partners which includes these requirements: that the police protect the sex workers from the media, that the police assure the sex workers that they are not being arrested, and that organizations that provide social services to sex workers not be implicated in police enforcement operations. However, IJM embedded a film crew from the American television program "Dateline" to film a raid of a Cambodian brothel, in apparent disregard of this policy. The botched raid resulted in the arrest of several non sex workers caught up in the raid, including a noodle seller who was denied medication by police and died in police custody. Further investigation revealed that many of the "rescued" sex workers escaped from an IJM "safe house" and returned voluntarily to brothels.
The International Union of Sex Workers criticises their practices as being founded in morality, which does not distinguish between consensual sex work and slavery, and that crackdowns drive prostitution further underground.
Read more about this topic: International Justice Mission
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