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An urgent call-to-action in support of ending violence against the world's poor reveals how in addition to hunger and disease, impoverish populations have become increasingly subject to assault, forced labor and other physical abuses, outlining recommendations for implementing workable solutions and overcoming corruption.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: What Are We Missing?
- Chapter 2: The Hidden Crisis at History's Inflection Point
- Chapter 3: When the Locusts Lay Waste
- Chapter 4: "No One's Driven That Truck in Decades"
- Chapter 5: The Emperor Has No Clothes - At All
- Chapter 6: A Dream Devastated
- Chapter 7: Colonial Legacy and a Failure that Makes Sense
- Chapter 8: Private Justice and Public Lawlessness
- Chapter 9: You Get What You Pay For
- Chapter 10: It's Been Done Before
- Chapter 11: Demonstration Projects of Hope
- Conclusion
- Appendix
About the author
Gary A. Haugen is founder and president of International Justice Mission, a global human rights agency that protects the poor from violence. The largest organization of its kind, IJM has partnered with law enforcement to rescue thousands of victims of violence. Haugen was Director of the U.N. investigation in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, and has been recognized by the U.S. State Department as a Trafficking in Persons "Hero^" -- the U.S. government's highest honor for anti-slavery leadership.
Victor Boutros is a federal prosecutor who investigates and tries nationally significant cases of police misconduct, hate crimes, and international human trafficking around the country on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. He is also a member of the Justice Department's Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, which consolidates the expertise of some of nation's top human trafficking prosecutors and enhances the federal government's ability to identify and prosecute large human trafficking networks.
Summary
A Washington Post bestseller
While the world has made encouraging strides in the fight against global poverty, there is a hidden crisis silently undermining our best efforts to help the poor.
It is a plague of everyday violence.
Beneath the surface of the world's poorest communities, common violence -- like rape, forced labor, illegal detention, land theft, police abuse and other brutality -- has become routine and relentless. And like a horde of locusts devouring everything in their path, the unchecked plague of violence ruins lives, blocks the road out of poverty, and undercuts development.
How has this plague of violence grown so ferocious? The answer is terrifying, and startlingly simple: There's nothing shielding the poor from violent people. In one of the most remarkable -- and unremarked upon -- social disasters of the last half century, basic public justice systems in the developing world have descended into a state of utter collapse.
Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros offer a searing account of how we got here -- and what it will take to end the plague. Filled with vivid real-life stories and startling new data, The Locust Effect is a gripping journey into the streets and slums where fear is a daily reality for billions of the world's poorest ,where safety is secured only for those with money, and where much of our well-intended aid is lost in the daily chaos of violence.
While their call to action is urgent, Haugen and Boutros provide hope, a real solution and an ambitious way forward. The Locust Effect is a wake-up call: Its massive implications will forever change the way we understand global poverty - and will help secure a safe path to prosperity for the global poor in the 21st century.
Additional text
In a remarkably sensitive study, very aptly named The Locust Effect, the authors have provided many new valuable insights into the intimate relationship between poverty and violence plaguing the billions of global poor in many post-colonial societies across continents. This is also probably the first time that Western observers have come upon the unpleasant reality that it is, in fact, the native political establishments in South Asian countries themselves who stubbornly refuse to break away from the colonial ruler supportive police and criminal justice systems, concepts, laws, procedures, and mind sets imposed by the imperialist rulers, thus denying their peoples the benefits of a citizen friendly law enforcement system. An invaluable companion to all criminal justice studies.
