Part 3: When Poverty Results In Women And Girls Becoming Victims Of Violence

The third part of my interview with Pablo Villeda, Vice President of Operations in Latina America for International Justice Mission.  If you did not get a chance to listen to the previous interviews, you can find them by clicking here.

As with the other interviews, it is in Spanish.  If you do not know the language, I’ve included an English transcript of the call below.  I would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below.  If you enjoyed this post, share it with your friends and family!

Lots of love,

 Judith

Judith: Pablo, thank you for joining us in this segment of the series we are doing on the work of Misión Internacional de Justicia (International Justice Mission). We have been following the story of Marcela in Bolivia. Marcela is not her real name; it is the name we are using to protect the victim, but we have been following this difficult story of Marcela, the girl who was sexually abused, 7 to 8 years, and, as you said last time, it is hard for children to speak on this subject; and her mother and the great effort made by the community to see what was happening with her mother, imprisoned by this man she married in her second marriage, isn’t it Paul?

Pablo: Yes, it was her second marriage, Judith, she had an initial relationship, from which Marcela was born; this man abandons Marcela’s mother, he leaves her to her fate and she then partners, makes a new home with Marcela’s abuser.

Judith: And the great story you told us about how this man abused the whole family, and only when the neighbors realized what was happening, and rescued them, knocked the door down, took the girls out, took Marcela's mother out, also Marcela, all of them, things really began to change; as we discussed last time, the power that we have as human beings to help other human beings.

Pablo: That's right.

Judith: Then you told us that Misión Internacional de Justicia was involved with this family when the police, due to lack of resources, came to see you.

Pablo: Yes, the case was referred to us by police itself in El Alto, and, I tell you, if there is corruption, there is inefficiency in developing countries but there are many of them who are good officers of the government, who are willing to make their work and need nothing but support. So, our team received the case, our team of lawyers analyzed the evidence, social workers and therapists began working with Marcela by providing therapy to allow her heal and process her trauma, to be ready to tell her story, her testimony, and in cooperation with Bolivian social services, she was brought before a judge as part of the process; she declared before the judge; she did it very well, it is very difficult, you can imagine, for a child to remember and tell an abusive situation, but she did well with the support of our staff and then we offered some other evidence; forensic, physical, medical about abuse evidence; her testimony was very solid, other witnesses also provided information and the abuser was eventually caught, prosecuted and judged according to Bolivian regulations and legal procedures and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. In the meantime, our team worked with Marcela, with her mother. We learnt the Marcela, who belongs to the Aymara ethnic group, spoke only Aymara, and had never gone to school.

Judith: Aymara, is the language of certain regions of Bolivia?

Pablo: Yes, it is one of the major ethnic groups in Bolivia, and the language they speak is the Aymara, and thousands and thousands of Aymaras live in La Paz, in El Alto, in different departments of Bolivia; our team supported her, we contacted a local public school and she went to school for the first time, she had the opportunity and began to flourish, to have the life that every girl, every child needs to have; she loved school, she learned to read and so much so that within two or three years, she became the assistant teacher, ie, a small privilege the teacher gave to little Marcela as a motivation; and when I met her, she showed me her notebooks, her homework, with great pride, the “nineties” and “hundreds” she had achieved, that is in front of me I saw that when we protect someone and justice is done, the victim then has access to other things; to education, to have a job that she could not have because of fear. We connected her mother with a local organization and that organization gave her a small microcredit and she could put up her own business and is now generating and she is being self-sufficient; that is, it was really wonderful. We are not the only ones nor do we claim to have the only solution but our contribution is in cooperation with others, in cooperation with local authorities.

Judith: You know you are bringing something to the light, something in which I really believe and for that reason I started the company, I started judithduval.com and it is that we all have the potential to be healthy, to shine as bright as we can shine, to do all you want to do; everyone, no matter where in the world you are, no matter where you are, and only with certain opportunities, with the key opportunities, we can do anything, for example now Marcela is reading and is one of the bests in her class and her mother, with a microcredit, can do what she is doing, it's amazing!

Pablo: Yes, and we do not think we have solved Marcela’s life, nor fixed her mother's life and her family; Life will be hard for them anyway, but you know what? Our intervention, community intervention, the intervention of the police, the judge who did the right thing, the prosecutor who did his job, were the catalyst that allowed them to have access to those opportunities that you have mentioned.

Judith: Amazing, really, then you provided psychological services when you found them, when you realized this case, legal services to prepare them for going to the court; educational services, labor services to her mother, financial services, credit, I'm trying to summarize what Misión Internacional de Justicia does, everything you do, using this example.

Pablo: Yes, this case is representative of what we do and what we provide: we provide services for the victim’s recovery and for restoration to the victim directly, legal aid services and investigation by police and working in cooperation with local researchers and local authorities, but recovery services, except for some of them as therapy, we provide them in cooperation with other organizations that may have those resources; in many countries we make cooperative partnerships with microcredit organizations or organizations that provide vocational training, educational opportunities, scholarships; all these in terms of cooperating and leveraging resources that already exist, they are not numerous, individually, but altogether, they can have a big impact.

Judith: Of course, a really great example of how you work as a team.

Pablo: Yes, you know, it is all about searching, finding a common denominator, often individually or as an organization maybe we could focus only on our space and close our eyes to the potential that exists to cooperate with others; and yes, there are many differences in philosophy, faith, goals, but if we can have an open mind and find common spaces, we can achieve great things for people who are in need.

Judith: Awesome, then for our audience; if you want to learn a little more about Misión Internacional de Justicia, it would be best if they could visit their website on the internet.

Pablo: Yes, I really invite you to visit our website which is www.ijm.org and also as we now that we live in a highly interconnected world through different platforms and social networks, we are on Facebook, Twitter, well, in YouTube, in Google, all platforms, and we can continue receiving news, updates, ways to get involved; the organization is growing, we are continuously looking for professionals who want to join the organization both in the United States and in the countries where we work, and there are different ways: as students, as a professional, as a man or woman who can be involved with us or other causes or similar organizations.

Judith: That’s fine, really, but I know you would not have solved all of Marcela’s problems, since it is a complicated case; I imagine that there are so many levels and so any things that the work you have done is amazing, and that life is 100% better for them; my hope is that organizations like yours and people like you, Pablo, I know you're working with them, not in Washington DC in the United States but in other countries, help us overcome this as a human race, and that each generation will be better, better and better, and that human development will reach a point where we’ll all have the same opportunities and maybe I will not be able achieve it in my life or something like that, but all this going in the right direction, where we should be going.

Pablo: Yes, Judith, imagine where we would be if the generation before us, or the generations before us had lived their lives without hope and without thinking of the future generations, where would we be?

Judith: Exactly.

Pablo: It is our responsibility, as you say, I have to secure the future of those who are here now but also think about the future, there is hope; my contribution, my “grain of sand” has an impact on real life, a girl, a boy and it has a multiplying effect on thousands and then millions. Judith, I completely agree with you, there is hope and each of us can do something.

Judith: I always think of this and it is something that has changed my life, when I changed my way of thinking, it is not only me, or what I can do for me, but made it a little bigger:  what I can do for my husband, what I can do for my future children, for my family, but when we change our perspective and begin to think who can we be for others?, around us, who I can be for someone else around me right now? ... The change is amazing because when we are so focused in ourselves, in our problems, is something I cannot explain; it is to be focused on your own problems and everything is great, everything is extremely great; then I ask the audience is that if you are in that moment you have all the world's problems and all are doing great, change your point of view and only ask yourself what can I do for others? What can I do for other people around? And the moment that you make the change, and you do not want to make it because you say “I have all these problems and I can’t ignore them”, but the truth is that all this comes from you; but if you can change that view for only five minutes, all your own problems will disappear; and that is incredible, because I then realize the point of all this and what I can do for the next generations.

Pablo: Absolutely.

Judith: Thank you very much, Paul, for being with us, I really appreciate everything you have shared with us, all that you have told us about Misión Internacional de Justicia, I hope that people who are listening to us now go to the website and search a way to help; if it is not IJM, it can be an organization near you and not only organizations but anyone who is beside them at this moment.

Pablo: Well Judith, thank you very much for your interest, for your time talking with me and discussing not only about Misión Internacionald de Justicia but justice issues we both care in the world and in our humanity.  I wish your program is successful and you continue to have an impact and a message of hope and change for your audience.

Judith: Thank you Paul, a thousand, a thousand thanks.

Pablo: Thank you.