Savior of trafficked women wins POSCO prize

Somaly Mam smiles after an interview in southern Seoul on Wednesday. (Kirsty Taylor/The Korea Herald)

Cambodian survivor of sexual slavery tells how helping others healed her heart

2012-03-28

By Kirsty Taylor (kirstyt@heraldm.com)

The Korea Herald

The first woman Somaly Mam rescued from prostitution has stayed in her heart for years, inspiring her to help others.

“I came back from work and I saw a woman who had been beaten in the street,” the Cambodian refuge founder recalled. “She was very skinny with all the blood coming out. I thought: ‘What are the people doing to her?’ I didn’t think of HIV, AIDS or anything ― I just ran over to her. I took her in my arms. I just looked at her and I knew what she wanted to tell me because it happened to me too.”

Mam, who has been awarded the 2012 POSCO TJ Park Prize for Community Development and Philanthropy for helping women escape sex trafficking knows their plight only too well. She herself was sold into sexual slavery at a very young age.

After being born into a tribal minority family living in extreme poverty in Cambodia’s Mondulkiri province, Mam was sold into sexual slavery by a man posing as her grandfather. To this day, she still does not know who the man really was. She was forced into prostitution and stayed in a brothel until one day she was forced to watch as her best friend was viciously murdered. She then escaped her captors in fear of a similar fate.

Exclusive: Travel to Cambodia with Shay Mitchell! [-Somaly Mam foundation]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMvwbpwK1p8

Stolen Innocence: One Woman's Fight Against Child Sex Slavery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llfsKMo_mEQ

Sold to a brothel as a child, Somaly Mam now leads an effort to rescue young sex slaves.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Alice Daniel

SuccessMagazine.com

Somaly Mam grew up orphaned in a tiny community, a speck of cleared land with bamboo huts in the wooded hills of northeastern Cambodia. She survived by scavenging for her food, sleeping in a hammock and sometimes getting help from a local family. She doesn’t know when she was born exactly, but when she was around 10, a stranger who called himself her grandfather came to her little village and took her away to be his servant. A few years later, when he needed money, he sold her to a brothel in Phnom Penh.

For the next decade, she was forced to endure the unthinkable. But she survived, severely traumatized, yet strong. And committed. Today, when she advocates through the Somaly Mam Foundation for the millions of girls enslaved in brothels in Cambodia and worldwide, she is advocating in part for herself.

Some 5,000 girls have been rescued by her organization since 1996.

Somaly Mam

Activist Somaly Mam attends the US Stop Sex Trafficking Of Children & Young People Campaign kick off event in New York City Photograph: Bennett Raglin/WireImage

Cambodian anti-sex trafficking campaigner and founder of AFESIP, rescuing women from brothels and supporting their recovery

Tuesday 8 March 2011

Emine Saner

The Guardian

Growing up in extreme poverty under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, Mam was sold into sexual slavery when she was 12, eventually ending up in a Phnom Penh brothel where she endured unimaginable daily torture and rape. After being made to watch as another girl, her best friend, was murdered, Mam escaped and was helped out of Cambodia by a French aid worker.

Instead of trying to rebuild her life in France, where she married, Mam returned to Cambodia to help girls who hadn't been so lucky. In 1996, she set up her organisation Afesip (Action for Women in Distressing Situations), to rescue girls and women from brothels and support their recovery. She has already helped more than 4,000 women and children, some as young as five, escape sexual slavery in south-east Asia and in 2007 set up the Somaly Mam Foundation, to raise awareness, campaign for change and fund projects to rescue and rehabilitate women and children sold into slavery.

Mam's work has come at a terrible personal cost. Her life has been threatened by pimps and brothel owners, and in 2006, her then 14-year-old daughter was kidnapped and raped by three men, as retaliation for the work her mother does. In an interview in 2005 , Mam admitted to periods of desperation, including more than one suicide attempt. But in more recent years, asked why she continues to fight, she has always responded, "I don't want to go without leaving a trace."

An Investment to End Slavery

January 27, 2011
By Somaly Mam
Trafficking Survivor and Activist
Huffington Post

It is hard reality to share. I fear that when I give a speech, participate on a panel or attend an event...I fear my words will not fully impart the enormity of the problem. While honored to be able to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, I worried I would not be able to do the facts justice.

Currently, there are 27 million slaves around the world. Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar human black market industry making it the second largest crime in the world. The majority of female victims are trafficked for prostitution. Poverty and lack of economic opportunities are the leading cause of slavery.

Traffickers often target impoverished, poorly educated individuals from the developing world looking for work or a safer place to call home. Once tricked with promises of safe passage, provision of work, help with visas or easy money, trafficking victims are placed in jobs with long hours, little or no pay, no health care and harsh working conditions. Many face emotional and physical abuse on a regular basis.

Those are the harsh facts. What follows is the hope.

“In Cambodia there is so much corruption”: Aussie Actor Tom Oliver

Neighbours actor Tom Oliver is the ambassador for Connecting Hands, a charity that helps Cambodian survivors of the child sex trade. CARMELO BAZZANO N31WH203

Neighbour's actor Tom Oliver's army to rescue

26 Jan 11
By Bridie Byrne
WhiteHorseLeader (Australia)

A CAMBODIAN girl is sold into sexual slavery at the hands of those she trusts.

A man who poses as her grandfather sells her into a life of torture and daily rape.

She is 12 and years later she is brave enough to escape her life after witnessing the murder of her best friend.

She vows to never forget those she left behind.

Somaly Mam is no longer a voiceless victim and has since dedicated her life to saving victims of the sex trade and empowering survivors.

End Slavery Now

Somaly Mam (R)

January 13, 2011
AnnaLynne McCord
The Huffington Post

Over the 2010 holiday season I had the incredible opportunity of returning to my home away from home, Cambodia. My older sister Angel and one of my best friends Melissa joined me on this trip in order to see a world many people are unaware even exists. We brought school supplies, donated computers and Christmas gifts to shelters run by my beautiful "sister," my friend, Somaly Mam. Somaly founded the grassroots organization, AFESIP, which is now supported by the Somaly Mam Foundation, to rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate survivors of human trafficking.

A true heroine of our time, Somaly was sold into slavery at age 12 and forced to work in a brothel, where she was brutally tortured and raped on a daily basis. Heroically, however, Somaly managed to escape her captors, vowing to never forget those left behind. She has dedicated her life to saving other victims and empowering those lucky enough to survive the atrocious plight of human trafficking. To date, Somaly has rescued over 6,000 girls from modern-day slavery.

Somaly Mam, activist against human sex trafficking, visits Stanford

Somaly Mam, former child sex slave and human rights advocate, speaks to the audience at the WCC Wednesday night. (FRANCISCA GILMORE/The Stanford Daily)

Thursday, November 11th, 2010
By Marianne LeVine
The Stanford Daily (Stanford U., USA)

On Wednesday, Somaly Mam, one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people, spoke out at the Women’s Community Center against human sex trafficking, drawing on personal experience as well as a lifetime spent combating the practice’s spread.

At a young age, Somaly Mam was sold into sexual slavery by a man pretending to be her grandfather. After witnessing the murder of her best friend, Mam escaped the brothel. In 1996, she established the Cambodian non-profit organization Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Précaire (AFESIP), dedicated to saving young girls sold into sexual slavery. The victims range in age from 4 to 12, and the organization has rescued more than 6,000 young women since its founding.

In 2007, the Somaly Mam Foundation was established by two Americans to advocate for the victims of sexual trafficking and allow their voices to be heard in the world community.

Viviana Arcia ’13, the chair of women’s issues for ASSU and one of the event’s organizers, says Mam understands the importance of the survivor’s perspective.

“She’s a representative of victim-centered activism…that is, letting survivors choose their own path and method of healing, which sadly many activists working with abused women do not do,” Arcia said. “They [the survivors] are the experts, they are the only ones that truly understand their situation and Mam is conscious of the fact that these girls need to be viewed and treated as autonomous people who have agency.”

The event began with the performance of the traditional Cambodian blessing dance. The five dancers were victims of sex trafficking, and began to cry as they recounted their difficult pasts.

“I am happy to meet you all. I never thought today was possible,” said one performer through a translator. “I look at you like brothers and sisters that care about me. I have a father that is despicable and I was sold by my own sister so I never felt love.”

Sex trafficking is not limited to Cambodia. Bill Livermore, the CEO and the executive director of the Somaly Mam Foundation, spoke on the global nature of the problem.

“The UN estimates 12.5 million slaves in the world today,” he said, adding that 17,000 people are trafficked into the U.S. every year.

“This is a problem of historical proportions,” he said. “It’s devastating. $32 billion is made in slavery. It is the second most profitable crime after drugs.”

Livermore described the two main functions of the Somaly Mam Foundation: empowering survivors and ensuring that a strict rule of law is enforced.

The Somaly Mam Foundation helps to fund shelters throughout Cambodia and encourages victim rehabilitation through dance therapy.

The Voices for Change program, one program of the Foundation in which survivors help counsel recent victims, has also been successful. According to Livermore, the program has encouraged more women in brothels to seek assistance. Intake rates at Cambodian shelters have increased from 60 percent to 90 percent within the past two years. Mam said the victims gain a sense of solidarity that helps them recover.

“What I needed when I was young was a mother,” Mam said. “But I didn’t have a mother. My life started bad. It’s like all of their lives. We had been born without parents, without love. We were born in very bad luck.”

The Somaly Mam Foundation encourages its members to voice their opinions about the center.

“I always believe the idea comes from the center,” Mam said. “Every year we have the girls get together. They tell us what they want the center to do. They are not soft at all. Empower the survivor. Don’t start tomorrow. Start now.”

Contact Marianne LeVine at mlevine2@stanford.edu.

Cambodian sex trafficking victim tells her story

June 23, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

Somaly Mam's autobiography is a global best-seller but she gets no pleasure from her story, she tells it because she has to. Somaly Mam escaped from being sold into sex-trafficking in Cambodia, and now campaigns to save women like herself. This week she's visiting Australia.

Presenter: Matt Abud
Speakers: Somaly Mam, Author The Road of Lost Innocence and founder, Somaly Mam Foundation; Tanya Plibersek, Australian Minister for the Status of Women; Stephanie Lorenzo, Founder, Futures Project

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

ABUD: Somaly Mam's parents disappeared in the violence of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime. She grew up in the forest, and when only nine years old she was sold into sex trafficking by a man she called 'Grandfather'.

It's a story that's all too common. Some estimates say that one in every forty Cambodian women are sold into prostitution. Many of them are under ten years old.

Somaly Mam is anything but usual. After years in the sex trade she managed to flee. In the face of violence in the brothel where she worked, escape was an act of desperation. She didn't expect to survive - and that's when she started to tape-record her story, just in case.

SOMALY MAM: I never make a decision to write a book and write a story because that is hard story. So I say that I'm dying so I take a tape and then I recorded three days. And then I send it to France and I tell them if I'm die they have to publishing because I want to let the people know what is the victim life mean everyday in the brothel

ABUD: Her book, The Road of Lost Innocence, is a simple and powerful account that has won high praise. She says she never expected to write it - and hasn't even read a page since, because it's so painful. But she realised other people needed to hear the story.

Contacts in France helped her escape there. But eventually she decided to return to Cambodia, and help girls and women like herself. She established the Somaly Mam Foundation. Now she runs three shelters which have supported thousands of former sex workers escaping the trade, and trained them for other employment.

It's not easy. Outreach teams meet the sex workers through safe-sex campaigns and services. If they get information about girls being sold, they contact the police for action.

The conditions the women and girls face in brothels are tough and dangerous - and sometimes fatal, because of either physical abuse or HIV-AIDS.

SOMALY MAM: First of all you know they are quite young, they have been raped and then beaten and hitting by the pimps. Some of them they have been killed and die in the brothel They can be HIV-AIDS, traumatised that is kill the girls.

ABUD: There's a lot of money in sex trafficking, and a lot of corrupt interests - and Somaly Mam has had her fair share of threats to burn her house or kidnap her child, for trying to create change.

She's visiting Australia this week to promote awareness of sex trafficking. The itinerary included meeting the Federal Minister on the Status of Women Tanya Plibersek.

PLIBERSEK: I think it's incredibly important for Australians to hear about Somaly's experiences. It's also very important for Australian tourists who are thinking about engaging in sex tourism to hear about the abuse and exploitation, to understand that this is not something that you can engage in carefree when you're on holidays and there are no consequences.

ABUD: Ms. Plibersek says recent legislation makes it easier to protect victims of sex trafficking in Australia - and to prosecute Australians who commit offences overseas.

Somaly Mam is hosted by Project Futures - a new organisation that raises funds for her shelters in Cambodia.

Stephanie Lorenzo founded Project Futures after visiting the shelters .

LORENZO: Once you meet the survivors they're so young, I'm twenty-four years old, a lot of these girls have been sold at twelve or thirteen and some even seven. So you look at these girls, you just see that their soul and their spirit how it's been lifted by being in the centre and lifted by Somaly being their mother and someone actually giving them love. You know it's something that you can't turn your back on.

ABUD: Project Futures is taking 27 cyclists from Australia and the United States to Cambodia, as part of an annual fundraising effort, which has already reached one hundred thousand dollars this year.

Ms. Lorenzo says her organisation aims to get young people involved as early as possible in combating sex trafficking.

And Somaly Mam is very clear on the messages she wants to tell Australia's youth - to value your own good fortune, and fight to help others.

SOMALY MAM:I want to tell them that, 'how lucky you are to be born in Australia, take the mother around you, take the love around you'. So I just want to tell them that participating to stand up and fight again, because the traffic is happen around the world.

Human Trafficking Survivors Train Cambodian Police and Government Officials

Cambodian human trafficking survivors will work with the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP) and the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT) Task Force to eradicate human trafficking.

"The power of these public-private partnerships can be seen in the eyes of the young women who escape the human sex slave industry and become advocates for change."

(PRWEB) February 1, 2010 -- Cambodian human trafficking survivors will work with the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP) and the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT) Task Force to eradicate human trafficking.

The survivors, part of the Somaly Mam Foundation’s Voices for Change (VFC) program, will train police and government officials on laws and issues related to sex trafficking and forced labor in Cambodia.

The training will focus on four Cambodian provinces -- Pailin, Battambang, Kampong Cham, and Takeo. The survivors will help participants better understand Cambodian anti-trafficking laws and the need for compliance with the Rule of Law. The training will also raise awareness of the underlying issues that lead to human trafficking and the specific needs of trafficking victims. The survivors will both lead the training sessions and help monitor and evaluate progress in the area after the training concludes.

A public service initiative will complement the training courses in each area. Two television and 24 radio talk shows are already committed to scheduling programs in 2010 that raise awareness of sexual exploitation and human rights issues in Cambodia. Voices for Change participants will help the stations create programs on topics such as trafficking for sexual and labor exploitation, child sex tourism, safe migration, new anti-trafficking laws, and victim assistance.

William Livermore, Executive Director of the Somaly Mam Foundation, says that programs like Voices for Change are perfect examples of Public-Private sector partnerships -- governments, corporations and NGO’s working together to address society's needs. “The Somaly Mam Foundation is proud to be able to partner with the United Nations, our corporate sponsor LexisNexis, and the Cambodian Government on such an important program,” Livermore said. “The power of these public-private partnerships can be seen in the eyes of the young women who escape the human sex slave industry and become advocates for change.”

About Human Trafficking:
Human trafficking, a multi-billion dollar industry, is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. With over one million women and children sold into sexual slavery each year, it is a global crisis. South East Asia is particularly hard hit by the effects of this crime. Sexual tourism and a lack of enforcement result in the victimization of thousands of young women and children every year.

About the Somaly Mam Foundation:
The Somaly Mam Foundation (www.somaly.org) is a non-profit public charity committed to ending modern-day slavery around the world.

Founded by sexual slavery survivor, Somaly Mam, the foundation supports rescue, shelter and rehabilitation programs across Southeast Asia. The Somaly Mam Foundation also runs global awareness and advocacy campaigns that shed light on sexual slavery and involve the public and governments in the fight to abolish slavery.

About the Voices for Change Program:
The Somaly Mam Foundation provides interested and qualified survivors from its rehabilitation program the opportunity to help eradicate human trafficking.

Voices for Change (VFC) is designed to give survivors an opportunity to help themselves by helping others, and to provide a platform for their voices to be heard in the courts and by the public. The organization's vision is that a new generation of leaders in the fight against human trafficking will arise from those who have experienced the pain of slavery.

Program participants join legal training seminars and courageously share their stories with magistrates, judges, and other members of the legal community to help them better understand sex slavery. Survivors who have undergone rescue, recovery, education, and reintegration also provide critical services to fellow victims of human trafficking. VFC members speak with new victims brought to the centers, complete intake forms, teach classes, share life skills training, and provide love and support.

About the LexisNexis Rule of Law Initiative:
LexisNexis combats human trafficking by applying our resources, people, solutions, legal expertise and direct financial support to combat human trafficking wherever it exists.

LexisNexis sponsors the Somaly Mam Foundation and Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Précaire (AFESIP), or Acting for Women in Distressing Situations. LexisNexis also sponsors special events around the world for government and legal professionals in order to raise awareness of the existence of human trafficking.

Activist runs organization to free Cambodian sex slaves

(Photo: Anthony Syros)

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
By Virginia Kiddy
Central Florida Future

Former slave Somaly Mam has made it her life’s work to end sex trafficking.

Opponents to her cause have burned her house, threatened her, kidnapped her children and raped her daughter.

“When I started this, I know I made my life dangerous. It’s not easy for me. A lot of people, they tell me that I’m crazy,” Mam said. “Well, I am crazy.”

About 200 people squeezed into the Cape Florida Ballroom Monday night to hear Mam speak about her experiences and her foundation’s efforts to end sex slavery. When seats filled up, students sat on the floor, stood along the back wall, and perched in from the hallway, watching through the doorways.

Mam is one of TIME magazine’s “World’s Most Influential People” for 2009 and a “CNN Hero.”

She became a slave as a child when a man who called himself her grandfather sold her into prostitution. She lived in a brothel with other Cambodian children and was raped and tortured daily, but after watching the murder of her best friend, she eventually escaped.
Since the opening of her shelter in Cambodia, 6,000 girls have been helped out of brothels. The girls call her mother.

“They are lovely,” Mam said.

Mam said it’s difficult to get girls out of the brothel because they are familiar with the routine of their life and don’t know who will love, help or give them a new life. Sometimes families don’t want their children back because of the shame, and they place blame on the children themselves for what happened. The government in Cambodia does nothing to help, Mam said.

In 2008, there was a global focus on establishing anti-trafficking laws in Cambodia, which had none, said Bill Livermore, executive director for the Somaly Mam Foundation.

“There was a major push on, ‘Well, you need to change your laws. That’ll solve everything,’” Livermore said. “Now we’ve come to realize that isn’t true until you can change society.”

Human trafficking is the second-largest organized crime, becoming a bigger business than drug trafficking, according to the Somaly Mam Foundation’s Web site.

Specific and consistent statistics about human trafficking are hard to calculate because of the nature of this worldwide crime. Of the 12.3 million adults and children in forced labor, an estimated 1.39 million people are victims of sexual servitude, according to the U.N.’s International Labor Organization.

As many as two million children are subjected to prostitution in the global commercial sex trade, according to the U.S. State Department.

This modern-day enslavement is not limited to foreign lands. It’s in the U.S., too.

“What is happening in our country is happening in your country,” Mam said.

Between 18,000 and 20,000 victims are trafficked into the U.S., according to U.S.

Department of Justice estimates listed on the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking Web site. A large percentage is trafficked into Florida because of seasonal agricultural immigrants.

Junior interdisciplinary women’s studies major Dominique Aulisio, who works with the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking, is starting a student organization called Student Labor Action Project.

“I think that people distance themselves from the problem,” said Aulisio. “I think we all do because a lot of times on the news it’s characterized as being a faraway country. But in reality, the traffickers are very organized, and they’re all over the world.”

Mam encouraged students to raise awareness and become active to end sex trafficking.

She thinks it’s possible within 10 years if everyone “activates” and fights.

“Fighting is not just sitting and talking, but you have to stand up and fight,” Mam said.

She said it is out of her capacity to accomplish the task alone.

“We need all of you,” Mam said.

She encouraged students to go on the foundation’s Web site and read about how to volunteer and learn more about what they do.

Senior Sally Griffin already had Mam’s book, The Road of Lost Innocence, and was excited to hear her speak. She wants to work and advocate against human trafficking. Her major is social work and minor is international studies for that reason, she said.

Griffin just got back from a trip to India with the organization International Justice Mission where she helped with a shelter, met girls who had been rescued from sex trafficking and saw the red-light district firsthand. She was first made aware of sex trafficking when someone from her church spoke about the issue.

“I didn’t know. Once I heard about it, it just kind of lit a fire in me,” Griffin said. “I don’t feel like I can just stand by knowing what I know.”

Former sex slave seeks help as 4-year-old found in brothel

Mon Aug 3, 2009
By Belinda Goldsmith

CANBERRA (Reuters Life!) - A former sex slave on Monday launched a global campaign against trafficking, saying the age of girls forced into prostitution keeps getting younger.

Cambodian Somaly Mam, whose eponymous foundation is dedicated to fighting the $12 billion a year sex-trafficking industry, said a four-year-old girl was found last month at a brothel in Cambodia after being reported by a male client.

The youngster had been sold to the brothel by her mother, who is also a prostitute.

She is now being cared for at one of the seven shelters run by the Somaly Mam Foundation in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam set up to protect and rehabilitate girls rescued from sex slavery. The group also has an office in Thailand dealing with repatriation.

"You just have to hold her and stay with her and show her that you love her. Children can become children again," Mam told Reuters as she launched a joint venture with cosmetics retailer The Body Shop to raise awareness of sex trafficking.

"There is this belief that having sex with a virgin will cure you of HIV so there is an increasing market for younger and younger girls. In my time it was girls aged 15 or 16 but it has got younger and younger."

The United Nations estimates that two million women and children are trafficked every year, with 30 percent of these in Asia. Poor families sometimes sell a daughter to pay off debts.

PERSONAL TRAGEDY

Mam personally knows the horror of a life of slavery having been sold to a brothel at the age of 16 by an abusive elderly man whom she called "grandfather." She was sold to pay off his debts.

She managed to escape the brothel with the help of a Swiss patron who paid off the owner and has since campaigned tirelessly against forced prostitution, setting up the Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007 to rescue and rehabilitate girls.

She was recently named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People."

Mam, who wrote about her journey from sex slave to crusader against prostitution in her memoir "The Road of Lost Innocence," has faced threats from pimps and organized crime syndicates over the years while her shelters have come under armed attack.

In 2006, Mam's teenage daughter was kidnapped. She was eventually rescued, but Mam still refuses to leave her work.

"All my family is safe now. We have bodyguards for my children," said Mam who refuses to give details about where her family lives.

She said global awareness about sexual slavery was extremely low and she hoped that joining forces with The Body Shop in a campaign spanning 60 nations would raise the issue's profile.

She also hoped this would lead to an increase in funds available to set up shelters were former sex workers could be trained in other industries such as sewing, weaving and even micro-finance so that they could set up their own businesses.

Over the next three years The Body Shop will campaign for governments to implement strict anti-trafficking policies and legislation, and to dedicate more resources to this cause.

"I need everyone to help our work, to open everyone's eyes to what is going on with trafficking children and what is going on in Cambodia, Asia and around the world," said Mam.

"It is not easy to get funding ... and the more people get involved the more we can stop trafficking."

Rescued Sex Workers Find Refuge

By Ker Yann, VOA Khmer
Video Editor: Manilene Ek
21 May 2009

Prostitutes are working the streets of Phnom Penh. Despite recent efforts by the Cambodian authorities to curb the country's huge illicit sex industry, the trade is continuing to thrive. While some brothels have been closed, others have been driven underground.

Cambodian law does not explicitly define prostitution as illegal, but commercial sex is frowned upon by authorities who routinely launch sweeps to clean up the streets. Every year in Cambodia hundreds of young girls are kidnapped by human traffickers and sold into brothels. Many endure years of mental and physical torture and they are forced to receive up to twenty customers a day.

Meanwhile, growing numbers of sex workers are moving to beer gardens, karaoke clubs and bars. While some so-called "bar-girls" choose sex work to escape poverty, a large proportion of brothel-based sex workers are the victims of human trafficking.

Founded by a former sex slave, The Somaly Mam Foundation was set up to rescue and rehabilitate victims of human trafficking. Somaly Mam blames organised crime networks, and corrupt officials, for Cambodia huge trafficking problem.

“Organized crime networks have set up a people trafficking system. They go from village to village looking for girls. Sometimes they use marriage to take them or they promise them good jobs in Phnom Penh with good salaries. Because many victims are poorly educated they fall for the trick and when they come to the city they get locked in a brothel”, she said.

The Somaly Mam Foundation has rescued over four thousand sex slaves from brothels throughout Cambodia since it was set up in 1996. It is currently caring for over 250 girls in three centres around Cambodia. More than half of them are under 18 years of age and most of the girls endured years of torture and abuse in brothels.

Vann Sina is keen to tell her story, how she was lured from Vietnam and imprisoned in a Cambodian brothel when she was just 13 years of age.

“I was beaten a lot and had to serve many clients. If I refused they would tortured me with electric shocks or force me to eat hot chillies. They locked me in an underground cellar and if I didn’t receive 15 to 20 clients a day, they would beat me up or torture me some more,” she said.

Life in a brothel is a living hell, says Somaly Mam as she recalls the years of abuse that she also endured.

“If you have lived with terrible experiences, or a bad situation, it does not mean that you are bad. We have to take our terrible experiences, shape them and turn them into something positive. But we have to remember what happened to us and never forget it. We have to help other victims and then they will help you by giving you love,” she said.

Sex work takes a huge physical and mental toll on the women involved. As well as the threat of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, many victims are psychologically damaged by their experiences. Doctor Ma Lay says most of the girls need years of therapy.

“Most of the girls who come to the centre have severe mental problems. They get angry easily, they shout a lot and many of them just want to die. And when we face this kind of situation we help them with regular counselling sessions where we try to encourage them to appreciate themselves and the value of life - and that takes a lot of time," she said.

The Somaly Mam centre creates a loving environment where the girls can make new friends and try to recapture their lost childhood. As well as treating victim's mental and physical injuries, the Somaly Mam Foundation provides further education and job training.

Vocational courses are offered alongside formal classes to help the girls find employment after they leave the centre. But the main aim is to teach the girls that their lives have meaning and that they can have a bright future. Human trafficking is the world's third most profitable criminal enterprise and there are more slaves today than at the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. These girls represent the lucky few who managed to escape a fate that awaits thousands more girls in Cambodia and around the world unless greater efforts are made to stamp out this trade.

Information for this report was provided by APTN.

Human Trafficking on the Rise in Cambodia

German UNICEF Chairwoman Heide Simonis, right, poses with Somaly Mam from Cambodia, following a news conference on child prostitution in Berlin (File)
Child of a Cambodian prostitute stands in the doorway of a Phnom Penh slum shack as a group of sex workers play cards to pass the time (File)

By Rory Byrne
Voice of America
Phnom Penh
23 March 2009

Every year in Cambodia, hundreds of girls are trafficked and sold into brothels where they are forced to work as sex slaves. Although precise figures are unavailable, analysts say that the rate of trafficking is soaring. Many of the victims endure years of torture and abuse in brothels, resulting in lasting physical and psychological damage.

Despite recent efforts by the Cambodian authorities to curb the country's huge illicit sex industry, analysts say it is continuing to thrive. Although many brothels have closed their front doors, their back doors remains wide open. Other brothels are using hairdressers or beauty shops to front their illicit trade.

Although some sex workers do the job to escape poverty, many of those working in brothels are victims of human trafficking who are held against their will and forced to work as sex slaves.

Founded by a former sex slave, The Somaly Mam Foundation was set up in 1996 to rescue and rehabilitate victims of human trafficking.

Since then, the group has rescued more than 5,000 girls from brothels throughout Cambodia and is now caring for more than 250 former sex workers, more than half of whom were under 18 years of age.

Somaly Mam says that the trafficking problem is getting worse every year. She blames organized crime and corrupt officials for running the industry.

She says that criminal networks have set up a structured people-trafficking system. She says agents go from village to village, looking for girls whom they lure away with promises of marriage or a good job. She says that, because many of the victims are poorly educated, they fall for the trick and when they come to the city they get locked in a brothel.

Trafficking victims are enslaved, tortured

Trafficking victims in Cambodia typically endure years of torture and abuse.

Vann Sina was lured from her village with an invitation to a Christmas party when she was just 13 years old. When she arrived in Phnom Penh she was locked in an underground cellar.

She says she was beaten a lot and had to serve many clients. She says that if she refused she was tortured with electric shocks or forced to eat hot chilies. She says that if she did not receive 15 or more clients every day she was starved and beaten.

Life in a brothel is a living hell, says Somaly Mam, as she recalls her years of abuse:

She says that, if you have never lived in a brothel, you cannot understand how bad it is. She says she had to receive more than ten clients a day and that most of them were drunk, smelled bad and were very violent. She says that the terror she endured was so bad it is indescribable.

Years spent locked in a brothel takes a huge mental and physical toll on the victims.

As well as the scourge of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, many are psychologically damaged by their experiences

Most of the girls who arrive at the Somaly Mam Foundation require years of therapy, says chief doctor Ma Ly.

She says that most of the girls who come to the center have severe mental problems. She says they get angry easily, they shout a lot and many of them just want to die. She says she tries to encourage them to love themselves again, but that can take years of therapy.

The Somaly Mam Center creates a loving environment where former victims can make new friends and attempt to recapture their lost childhoods.

Somaly Mam says the center tries to teach them to love themselves again, but that they must never forget what happened to them.

She says, just because you have lived in a terrible situation, it does not mean that you are a bad person. She says that she has survived by reshaping her past and turning it into something positive.

Mental treatment may take years

As well as treating victim's mental and physical injuries, the Somaly Mam Foundation provides further education and job training to help the girls find employment after they leave the center.

But the main aim is to teach the girls that their lives have meaning and that they can have a bright future.

A woman says that, when she was in the brothel, she never thought she could escape from that hell. She says she thought her pain was for a lifetime but that today she feels much better.

Analysts say there are more victims of human trafficking today than at the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Without a greater effort to stamp it out, thousands other girls in Cambodia and around the world will fall victim to this modern-yet-ancient form of slavery.

Book Review: The Road of Lost Innocence - The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine by Somaly Mam

November 14, 2008
Written by Jennifer Bogart
Blogcritics Magazine (USA)

Some books are dangerous; reading them opens your eyes and makes you see the world around you in a different way. After reading them this new understanding of reality lingers and is not easily dismissed. Stories like these drive you to action, serving as a call to take up arms. Somaly Mam’s memoir, The Road of Lost Innocence, is one such book.

Born in Cambodia during years of political turmoil, Somaly never knew her parents – she still doesn’t know what became of them. Left by her grandmother in a tribal village, her early years were spent outdoors, roaming amongst the huts looking for food. These years were happy compared to those that would follow after leaving northern Cambodia with a man who claimed to know of her parents at the age of six.

This man, her “grandfather” would proceed to beat and molest her, sell her virginity to pay his debts at the age of 11, marry her to an abusive husband at the age of fourteen and finally sell her to a brothel at 16. As you can imagine Somaly’s story is not an easy, feel good read. The list of travesties, betrayals and corruption she has known is far too lengthy to detail here.

Catching glimpses of a better life, Somaly is eventually able to escape from the bondage of sexual slavery. Using the only currency at her disposal she begins to make alliances with foreign men – those with wealth and power – and uses them to begin her slow ascent out of prostitution. After achieving her freedom the girls she left behind haunt her. Knowing the devastation trafficking in girl-flesh wreaks she cannot stand motionless while atrocities are committed; hopefully you won’t be able to either when this story comes to a close.

Presented in spare, matter of fact prose the writing itself mimics the Cambodian attitude towards life; silent, understated. Coming from a people who disguise their emotions to the utmost – simply writing this memoir is a break with traditional Cambodian culture. Somaly however, has long since ceased to be a traditional Cambodian.

The words seek to describe without betraying the depths of emotional pain behind them, but it still seeps through. Between each and every line, in the silences and pauses the pain is there alongside the fear and anger. The Road of Lost Innocence is the anguished soul cry of a woman who has never truly been loved, the heart breaking sobs of a shattered little girl.

Somaly brutally exposes the truth of modern sexual trafficking in south-east Asia through her own story and that of those she has rescued from slavery. She outlines the beginnings of her non-profit organizations that rescue girls and women from brothels, sketching out plans for their reintegration into society. Free of her physical bonds and able to offer hope to those in chains, she remains a broken woman. The aching sadness created throughout her life’s circumstances is still present; only slightly mitigated by her relentless drive to rescue the weak and defend the defenseless.

She tells her story not to evoke sympathy for herself, though her pain is apparent. She writes, offering herself up to the public eye to draw attention to the plight of the girls and women who are still captive; taken against their will and viciously used. Somaly truly wants nothing for herself other than the opportunity to continue working with the victims of sexual trafficking and to draw awareness to their plight.

Truly, every responsible citizen of the world should engage Somaly’s work. The difficult stories need to be told, more than that - they must be acted upon. Only with eyes opened to the atrocities surrounding us can we step out in faith, reaching into the darkness to rescue those bound there.

Visit the Somaly Mam Foundation to learn how you can make a difference in the lives of those affected by sexual trafficking.

Petra Nemcova - Nemcova Haunted By Cambodia Charity Trip

15/04/2008
ContactMusic.com

Supermodel-turned-humanitarian PETRA NEMCOVA was horrified after witnessing first-hand the brutality of human trafficking during a recent visit to Cambodia.

The Czech Republic-born model was so jarred by the experience she has teamed up with Southeast Asian-based charity the Somaly Mam Foundation in an effort to raise awareness for the devastating crimes.

She says, "It makes me so angry. Girls and boys get sold as young as four-years-old and are put in animal cages. Some of them never see the light anymore. We met this girl who was 13 and a pimp made her lose her right eye. The words 'pimp' and 'child' should never be in the same sentence."

Nemcova was so moved by the Foundation, which seeks to rescue women and girls from the horrors of a life in brothels or on the streets, she wore a dress hand-sewn by women rescued by the group to a recent charity gala.

The model suffered her own hardship during a 2004 vacation to Thailand, surviving multiple broken bones and internal injuries when a tsunami hit land, killing her then-boyfriend, photographer Simon Atlee, and leaving her stranded for hours in a palm tree.

Anti-sex slavery activist in Denver tonight

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

Savior of The Sex Slaves

DELIVERED FROM EVIL: Former Southeast Asian sex slave Somaly Mam, with freed 15-year-old prostitute Srey Pov, helps girls through three shelters and a charity.

Hero Frees Girls From Brothel Hell

By Andrea Peyser
New York Post (New York, USA)

November 5, 2007 -- SOMALY MAM doesn't know her birthday. She has no clue what her real name might be, or if she even has one.

Somaly also doesn't know what her age was - though she reckons she was 8 or 9 - on the day she was sold into sexual slavery. She does remember, with complete clarity, the moment she vowed to murder her pimp.

It was the night the guy gathered all his little girl prostitutes into a room and told them to tie up one of his slaves. Then, he shot her in the head.

She was Somaly's best friend.

"I'm the only one not crying," Somaly told me, and her gaze became stern, as if she can see the man's face. "I just looked at him. I decided that I would marry a rich man, get a gun and kill him."

But Somaly didn't kill the pimp. Instead, she dedicated her life to saving little girls, like her, forced into the sex trade. Some are as young as 4 years old.

That's how she's getting her vengeance.

I met Somaly Mam last week at a Midtown restaurant to hear a tale of deprivation that seems unfathomable to American ears. Most of us would prefer not to know.

But Somaly will tell her tale, over and over if necessary, because she just started an American charity - the Somaly Mam Foundation. With a Web site, somaly.org, it raises money to save girls.

And now, the story nobody wanted to hear is getting the Hollywood treatment. A movie about the Southeast Asian slave trade, "Holly," opens Nov. 9.

Somaly figures she's now in her late 30s - a trim, gorgeous woman who looks like she could have once been a model.

She was a street child, abandoned at birth. She was beaten and tortured. Finally, an old man posing as her grandfather sold her to a brothel. She lost the capacity to feel pain.

But she survived. At age 18 or 19, Somaly was deemed too old to be a prostitute and allowed to leave the brothel. She has since married, moved to France and had three children, though she is now divorced.

In the mid-'90s, she went back to Cambodia and opened her home to young girls. She now runs three shelters, where girls learn skills like hair-cutting.

Somaly came to America with a girl of 15, Srey Pov.

Srey's childhood ended at age 7, when her mother sold her for $20. At age 10, Somaly rescued her.

On Wednesday, Srey went trick-or-treating for the first time in her life.

Somaly will not quit. Not until every little girl gets a shot at childhood.

Not until every little girl gets a chance.

andrea.peyser@nypost.com