Somaly Mam wins $1.3 million award from Munich-based Roland Berger Foundation

Cambodian woman activist given $1.3 million award

November 14, 2008
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A Cambodian woman activist who has spearheaded her country's battle against sex traffickers is the first recipient of an award from a recently established human rights foundation, the German Embassy announced Friday.

The 1 million euro ($1.269 million) award to Somaly Mam from the Munich-based Roland Berger Foundation rivals in amount the Nobel Peace Prize, which includes a grant of 10 million Swedish kroner ($1.268 million).

The Roland Berger Human Dignity Award was given to Somaly Mam — who herself is a former sex trade victim — "in recognition of her fight for a world without slavery," the German Embassy said in a statement.

Somaly Mam was sold into prostitution as a child and later escaped with the help of foreigners and aid workers. She has written about her experience in a recently published book, "The Road of Lost Innocence."

She currently heads a group named AFESIP — from the French acronym for Acting for Women in Distressing Situations — which has helped build safe houses that provide refuge, care and schooling for girls rescued from slavery.

AFESIP has rescued about 4,000 girls and women from the sex trade since it was founded in 1996, AFESIP spokesman Som Sophatra said. There are 166 former victims now living in the group's three shelters in Cambodia.

Somaly Mam could not be reached for comment Friday. Colleagues said she was traveling abroad.

Som Sophatra said she received news of her award two weeks ago.

"First she didn't believe it and she went to confirm the story (with the foundation) about the donation," he said. "She was nervous and very happy at the same time because she never got such a big amount of money."

He said the award could not have come at a better time as the group has been facing a shortage of funds since the beginning of the year.

German Federal President Horst Kohler will present the award at a ceremony in Berlin on Nov. 24, the embassy said. It praised Somaly Mam for her "fearless voice for political lobbying and numerous campaigns against human trafficking."

In April, Somaly Mam received an award from the Swedish Children's World Association for her work. In 2006, she was honored as one of Glamour magazine's women of the year.

The independent Roland Berger Foundation, which documents human trafficking and slavery, was founded in March by Roland Berger, a guest professor of business administration at the Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus, Germany. It says the award is intended "to raise awareness on human dignity and human rights worldwide."

Cambodian Heroine Fights Against Human Trafficking

Cambodian Activist Somaly Mam (Photo by Ken Levinson)

Sept 2008
Contact: Janet Sassi
212-636-7577
fallersassi@fordham.edu
Fordham University (New York, USA)

When Somaly Mam was on the brink of adolescence, her grandfather sold her into the sex trade in Cambodia. Today, Mam is a published author and advocate for victims of a global human trafficking industry that sells nearly a million people into slavery each year.

Mam recounted her unlikely life journey at “Speak Truth to Power,” an event sponsored by the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) and Fordham Law School on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Addressing an audience of 150, Mam painfully recalled the decade she spent in a brothel, forced into prostitution where virgins were at a premium and captives became younger and younger—as young as five years old.

She recalled “having to close our eyes, and accept 20 to 30 men per day” or else face being beaten by their captors. On three occasions, Mam said, she tried to commit suicide.

After she witnessed her best friend’s murder at the hands of a client, Mam escaped the sex trade with the help of a French aide worker.

“I know how to react under fear, but talking here is not easy for me,” said Mam, author of The Road of Lost Innocence: The Story of a Cambodian Heroine (Spiegel & Grau, 2008). “I don’t know my age, my real name or my family, but I thank every one of you who has helped me to understand what love means. Now I have my mission, to save others from the brothel and to help them find a new life, to give them love.”

In addition to being an author, Mam is co-founder and president of AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Situations), an organization that operates three shelters in Cambodia for more than 300 young girls who have escaped the forced sex-trade. Since most of the girls are between five and 12 years old, Mam has opened schools at the sites. To date, AFESIP has rescued 4,000 children from sex trafficking, she said.

Mam delivered an impassioned plea for support against a global human trafficking market that generates $9.5 billion annually, $4 billion of which goes to the prostitution industry. She also urged the audience to contact United States senators who do not support the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year to strengthen penalties for trafficking.

“I can go to a brothel and save a victim, or 20 victims, but the next day they will be replaced,” Mam said. “I cannot stop organized crime, but you can. They are still raping every day. So please, talking is great but more reacting is needed.”

Joining Mam was William Livermore, director of customer contact at LexisNexis, a political and financial supporter of Mam’s organizations. Livermore noted that there are still 11 states within the U.S. that do not have anti-trafficking legislation on their state books.

“Trafficking is a problem that is bigger than the sub-Mekong delta,” he said. “It is here in New York, Boston . . . so even in the United States, there is work to do.”

The event was co-sponsored by GSS, Fordham Law School’s Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, LexisNexis, Priority Films and Redlight Children, a non-governmental organization fighting child sexploitation.

Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to approximately 14,700 students in its four undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx and Manhattan, a campus in Westchester, and the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y.