Somaly Mam (John Prieto, The Denver Post)
Somaly Mam and two former U.S. Air Force Academy cadets — Nic Lumpp, far left, and Jared Greenberg — are launching a private U.S. effort to fight the multi-billion sex trade that governments and police have been unable to kill. (John Prieto, The Denver Post)04/04/2008
By Bruce Finley
The Denver Post (Colorado, USA)
Working as a teen-aged sex slave in a Cambodian brothel, Somaly Mam says she served up to 30 clients a night. Some hit her. "I never thought, just lived hour by hour. I played with nothing. In my head: nothing. It was dark, dark, dark. I never trusted people," Mam said Friday during a visit to Denver.
"I was dead."
She tried suicide, she said.
Her turning point: the day a brothel pimp fired a bullet through the head of her friend, Srymom, who dared refuse customers - warning other girls to obey. Mam said she then began trying to help a newcomer, a girl with dark skin like her, and eventually used the brothel keys to set her free.
Brothel owners soon released Mam, deeming her too old for Cambodia's booming sex trade.
Ever since, Mam has been arranging rescues of child sex slaves - more than 4,000 over the past decade. The group she formed - Acting for Women in Distressing Situations - counsels and rehabilitates them at shelters in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
Now Mam and two former U.S. Air Force Academy cadets - Nic Lumpp and Jared Greenberg - are launching a private U.S. effort to fight the multi-billion sex trade that governments and police have been unable to kill.
Based in Denver, the Somaly Mam Foundation (www.somaly.org) has raised $400,000 and aims to collect $1 million by July, thanks to corporate and celebrity backers such as actress Susan Sarandon.
"We need the United States. Americans are more active," Mam said. Cambodia's own efforts to combat the sex trade have been crippled by corruption of police and courts.
A preview of the film "Holly" tonight at Denver's Starz film center - continuing through next week - is designed to help publicize the effort. A fund-raiser has been set for next week in New York. And Mam's published account of her slavery - "The Road of Lost Innocence" - is scheduled for release this fall.
After graduating from the Air Force Academy in 2005, Lumpp and Greenberg resolved to do something about the global sex trade.
"It outraged us," said Lumpp, 25. "We couldn't just stand by and talk about it. It's a blatant disregard for human life."
Greenberg now works as a management consultant in Los Angeles, and Lumpp runs a Denver-based web business that helps parents teach children financial skills.
They discovered Mam's work and sent her emails. She received these with great skepticism, she said, and told the Americans to come to Cambodia if they wanted to help.
They visited for 10 days last year.
Mam said she still doubted them, suspecting they were sex tourists or pedophiles.
Meeting them at the airport, "I looked at them thinking: They are young. If they have commitment, that's good. I don't think they are pedophiles."
She brought them to one of her 60-person shelters and watched them carefully as they met recently-rescued girls. "I wanted to see their attitude," Mam said.
Lumpp and Greenberg played games. They worked with interpreters to ask girls and young women questions. Lumpp said they noticed those in Mam's shelters aspired to become educated, whereas those in brothels seemed listless.
Mam said she saw the two crying. "I said to myself: we can trust them."
"My staff said: You trust them? I said: Yes. They said: Why? I said: I just do. Normally I never trust men."
The foundation's approach is twofold: campaign to stop foreign sex tourists and others from entering southeast Asia in the first place, and fund continued rescues and rehab for girls and young women at shelters in Cambodia and neighboring countries.
Today sex trade owners seek younger girls, as young as 4, said Mam, who was sold from her village into slavery around age 12 after a "grandfather" used her as a household servant.
Rehab is difficult, Mam said. One girl at her shelter, 7-year-old Sokchea, seemed to recover well at first, starting school and excelling. Then after three months she quit. "We cannot release the pain inside her," Mam said. Another former slave, Srymuch, "has AIDs and is going to die."
U.S. diplomats have visited the 60-person shelters, where girls receive counseling, medical care, basic education, and training on sewing machines.
Rescues are high-risk operations based on tips received at Mam's shelters. Brothel owners have threatened to kill her, and thugs broke up a shelter in December 2004 after a raid on a hotel.
U.S. officials quietly offered her protection, Mam said. But leaving Cambodia is out of the question. "My heart is with these girls," she said.
"If I didn't run these shelters, maybe I could not survive."
Bruce Finley: 303.954.1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com
"I was dead."
She tried suicide, she said.
Her turning point: the day a brothel pimp fired a bullet through the head of her friend, Srymom, who dared refuse customers - warning other girls to obey. Mam said she then began trying to help a newcomer, a girl with dark skin like her, and eventually used the brothel keys to set her free.
Brothel owners soon released Mam, deeming her too old for Cambodia's booming sex trade.
Ever since, Mam has been arranging rescues of child sex slaves - more than 4,000 over the past decade. The group she formed - Acting for Women in Distressing Situations - counsels and rehabilitates them at shelters in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
Now Mam and two former U.S. Air Force Academy cadets - Nic Lumpp and Jared Greenberg - are launching a private U.S. effort to fight the multi-billion sex trade that governments and police have been unable to kill.
Based in Denver, the Somaly Mam Foundation (www.somaly.org) has raised $400,000 and aims to collect $1 million by July, thanks to corporate and celebrity backers such as actress Susan Sarandon.
"We need the United States. Americans are more active," Mam said. Cambodia's own efforts to combat the sex trade have been crippled by corruption of police and courts.
A preview of the film "Holly" tonight at Denver's Starz film center - continuing through next week - is designed to help publicize the effort. A fund-raiser has been set for next week in New York. And Mam's published account of her slavery - "The Road of Lost Innocence" - is scheduled for release this fall.
After graduating from the Air Force Academy in 2005, Lumpp and Greenberg resolved to do something about the global sex trade.
"It outraged us," said Lumpp, 25. "We couldn't just stand by and talk about it. It's a blatant disregard for human life."
Greenberg now works as a management consultant in Los Angeles, and Lumpp runs a Denver-based web business that helps parents teach children financial skills.
They discovered Mam's work and sent her emails. She received these with great skepticism, she said, and told the Americans to come to Cambodia if they wanted to help.
They visited for 10 days last year.
Mam said she still doubted them, suspecting they were sex tourists or pedophiles.
Meeting them at the airport, "I looked at them thinking: They are young. If they have commitment, that's good. I don't think they are pedophiles."
She brought them to one of her 60-person shelters and watched them carefully as they met recently-rescued girls. "I wanted to see their attitude," Mam said.
Lumpp and Greenberg played games. They worked with interpreters to ask girls and young women questions. Lumpp said they noticed those in Mam's shelters aspired to become educated, whereas those in brothels seemed listless.
Mam said she saw the two crying. "I said to myself: we can trust them."
"My staff said: You trust them? I said: Yes. They said: Why? I said: I just do. Normally I never trust men."
The foundation's approach is twofold: campaign to stop foreign sex tourists and others from entering southeast Asia in the first place, and fund continued rescues and rehab for girls and young women at shelters in Cambodia and neighboring countries.
Today sex trade owners seek younger girls, as young as 4, said Mam, who was sold from her village into slavery around age 12 after a "grandfather" used her as a household servant.
Rehab is difficult, Mam said. One girl at her shelter, 7-year-old Sokchea, seemed to recover well at first, starting school and excelling. Then after three months she quit. "We cannot release the pain inside her," Mam said. Another former slave, Srymuch, "has AIDs and is going to die."
U.S. diplomats have visited the 60-person shelters, where girls receive counseling, medical care, basic education, and training on sewing machines.
Rescues are high-risk operations based on tips received at Mam's shelters. Brothel owners have threatened to kill her, and thugs broke up a shelter in December 2004 after a raid on a hotel.
U.S. officials quietly offered her protection, Mam said. But leaving Cambodia is out of the question. "My heart is with these girls," she said.
"If I didn't run these shelters, maybe I could not survive."
Bruce Finley: 303.954.1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com
17 comments:
We are looking right at our very own modern Princess.
Ordinary Khmers
We must influence our adult male elders not to contribute to the mix. I know quit a fewer who goes back to our only home land and does exactly that. There is no right way to pay for pleasure at someone else expenses.
I am surprised that Hun Sen's government ignores it for years? Where is Mrs. Bunary?
The police will never stop the sex trade in brothels and massage parlours, because they are owned and are under the protection of the police. You have to be one-eyed and brain dead if you dont understand that.
I don't trust any Khmer with westerner hair talking. Why are they doing that, what is wrong with black hair? It's not enough to seduce men or what?
You Viet pimp/parasite @1:02 PM must quit giving Khmer a bad name.
Go home Viet, go home Viet!
Leave Khmer people alone!
Thank you bong Somaly,
You are a better person and a better khmer then most especially our current government.
God bless you and forever favors you bong srey.
Damn, there goes another gorilla that haven't got laid for years.
Hun Sen 'family are not allow girl walk at night and not use to sell own children to be sex slave .but his best friend in next door ,had sold their children and their wife to sex for money or propose some thing that they want.now he closed his eye and do anything adoped with his best friend.
Yeah, but we all know how Thailand is; so what is your point?
thank you for helping innocent, less fortunate cambodian people and other nationalities as well who are victims of the human-trafficking business. may god bless you.
When one dresses provocatively with Western-dyed hair, he/she is bounced to get him/herself in trouble with the public.
Sex slavery or crimes does not only occur in Cambodia; however, it occurs throughout the world, particularly in the United States, where there are many bleeding liberal advocators. Therefore, why are these retarded gorillas are lambasting the Cambodian government?
all above comments, i still think most of you love our country as khmer people, but only some khmers still confused, b/c they had been manipulated by the yuon hunsen regime that's why they ignored the reality, and they just scared and insecure themselves. eeyore!
No, actually yuon hunsen regime help to clear up the SRP smoke bomb so that we can see that Ah Xam Rainxy is a notorious Khmer children killer and abuser.
1.02pm: fuck you, you seem to be on KI fulltime. humm, oh you're fucking bastard who do this for a living. I know your type: not content, broke, dump, dependent on others to provide for self-needs, pathetic, mad..............
Oh man, I can go on.
do yourself a favor, be better.
You know youns is nothing compared to khmers, look at now: even youns seem to do alot better than khmer, yet its currency is still alot cheaper compared to khmer riels.
So stop dreaming that you'll get srok khmer.
Chan,
Ah Xam Rainxy notorious killer must be stopped from destroying our religion.
Hey Viet troller/pimp/parasite/plunderer @7:56 AM,
You Viet troller/intruder admitted yourself to be a Viet-born and national here on KI-Media.
You Viet troller/intruder has been dumping tons of trashes here on KI-Media over God knows how long.
You Viet troller/intruder pretends to be Cambodian/Khmer speaking up for Cambodian/Khmer and giving Cambodian/Khmer a bad name.
You Viet troller/intruder trashes everybody here on KI-Media calling Cambodian/Khmer all sort of names to boast, to sabotage and to destroy Cambodian/Khmer for the benefit of you Viet intruder/plunderer....
Now, you Viet trash/troller/intruder wants to have some real debates?
Does history and now a live example of you Viet trash/troller here on KI-Media tell Cambodian/Khmer anything about the Viet's trustworthiness?
Cambodian/Khmer and the whole world know the true colors of you Viet troller/intruder/invader/plunderer full well already.
In plain and simple English, now, and again what part of you "getting the fuck out of KI-Media" don't you fucking Viet troller/intruder/pimp/plunderer understand huh?
Let's see you Viet pimp/parasite's tail between your legs and run on home out of KI-Media now!
Go home Viet, go home!
The World knows you Viet parasite true colors already!
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