Nearly three decades since its founding, the nonpartisan International Justice Mission remains resolute in freeing victims of human trafficking and legally attacking the mechanisms that promote it, no matter the country. At a grassroots level around Kansas City, the anti-trafficking nonprofit ReHope delivers fresh starts to the previously oppressed.
They’re two agencies that have different geographical reach and budgets, but they’re single-minded and clear-eyed in doing what they can — against what may seem like insurmountable odds — to quash human exploitation long equated to modern slavery.
ReHope CEO Jason Alvis (left), Black & Veatch Chairman and CEO Mario Azar (center), and Pamela Jensen, director of strategic partnerships-Midwest for International Justice Mission, display presentation checks after Black & Veatch’s charity golf tournament benefitting the two organizations fighting human trafficking on Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. The contributions to the nonprofits reflect the latest from the Black & Veatch Foundation, which focuses on many community and humanitarian causes.
Best known as a global leader in building critical infrastructure, Black & Veatch is helping in that quest to rebuild lives, true to its purpose of building a world of difference. The employee-owned company is directing the $170,000 in proceeds of its yearly charity golf tournament Monday to IJM and ReHope, having already sponsored the ReHope’s 2025 Freedom Gala fundraiser in January. The Black & Veatch Foundation, which focuses on many community and humanitarian causes, also provided grants and updated facilities to ReHope counterpart Veronica’s Voice before the two agencies merged in mid-2024, as well as financial support to IJM since 2022.
The United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated in 2022 that 27.6 million people worldwide were victims of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Human trafficking remains among of the largest, most profitable criminal enterprises, generating an estimated $99 billion annually from forced sexual exploitation alone. Yearly illicit profits from modern slavery are believed to have soared to $245 billion.
Since launching in 1997, IJM has partnered with local authorities in 33 program offices in 18 countries to combat slavery, violence against women and children, and police abuse of power. The mission: protect people in poverty from violence by rescuing victims, bringing criminals to justice, restoring survivors to safety and strength, helping local law enforcement build a safe future that lasts, and working with the governments of developing countries to improve justice systems.
IJM says it has brought freedom to more than 480,000 victims of violence, setting them on a path to restoration. The organization has protected nearly 11 million vulnerable people from violence because their local justice systems — often after legal pressure from IJM — now actively safeguard them.
Founded in May 2015, what now is ReHope includes17-acre ReHope Farms as the Midwest’s biggest residential survivor program. Its services range from trauma-informed counseling and life coaching to holistic wellness programs and therapeutic small animal programs, job training, education, reintegration, and gardening and spiritual development. Medical and psychological offerings are free, along with prescriptions, and dental and vision care.
Constrained by space and funding, ReHope’s “crisis stabilization house” fielded 279 requests for services over the last three-quarters of 2024 but could only accommodate 28 women, three of them with children. Thirteen of those women were referred to long-term programs such as ReHope Farms, where the 31 survivors helped last year were among 379 requests for help.
Black & Veatch’s latest contributions to ReHope and IJM embody the company’s commitment to building thriving communities through philanthropy rooted in practical action. Each year, the Black & Veatch Foundation supports more than 150 global nonprofit organizations with funds, grants, hardship support, advocacy and matched contributions with our employees’ personal donations and community engagements — focused on giving to vulnerable and marginalized populations.
“IJM and ReHope offer consequential, courageous and lifesaving services for those innocents who’ve been involuntarily swept into the unspeakable tragedy of human trafficking,” Black & Veatch Chairman and CEO Mario Azar said. “On a local and global scale, we share the belief that stopping the scourge of human exploitation in all reaches of the world is a collective moral imperative. It’s a fight we must win.”
