Women rescue Cambodian sex slaves

Former sex slave speaks

Monday, March 28, 2011
By Kelsey Wells
Staff Writer

A person's past does not necessarily determine their future, Cambodian human rights activist Somaly Mam said in a lecture Friday afternoon in the State Farm Room of the Business and Aerospace Building.

As the keynote speaker for the annual Global Discourses in Women's and Gender Studies conference, Mam discussed how she spent much of her early life as a sex slave but has dedicated the rest of it to helping others escape the abuse and illness she grew up with.

Mam said she was sold in slavery when she was a young teenager by a man posing as her grandfather. Even today, she said she does not know exactly how old she is or who her parents were. She also does not know her real name.

Her owner forced her to live in a snake and scorpion infested brothel with other young slaves, she said.

NGOs play crucial role in rescuing Cambodian child sex workers

September 15, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

Four young Cambodian girls are in the care of Thai social services are being rescued from a brothel in the border town of Aranyaprathet over the weekend.

The girls were aged just 14 and 15 and were reportedly being kept in locked rooms with bars over the windows. That was until an Australian-based group known as Grey Man got word of their plight, gathered some evidence and tipped off local authorities. Non governmental organisations carry out hundreds of these so-called "rescues" of child sex workers every year.

Presenter: Helene Hofman
Speakers: 'John Curtis', President, Grey Man; Patchareeboom Sakulpitakphon, Program Officer for combatting child sex trafficking and child sex tourism, ECPAT International, Christian Guth, Law Enforcement Advisor, Ministry of the Interior (Cambodia)

Patchareeboom Sakulpitakphon, program officer for combatting child sex trafficking and child sex tourism with ECPAT International says that's because many groups don't fully understand the underlying issues.

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

HOFMAN: It's almost impossible to gather accurate figures, but according to the United Nations and anti-trafficking groups working on the ground, anywhere between 100-thousand and 200-thousand children are trafficked every year, in Southeast Asia alone.

Some are rounded up for cheap labour, but about half - it's thought - are forced into the sex industry.

That was the case with the four teenage Cambodian girls rescued from a brothel just a kilometre across the Thai border this weekend.

Trafficking first emerged as a major problem for Cambodia back in the 1990s and has grown steadily as an internal and cross-border problem ever since.

The extent of the problem has led to numerous international organisations and non-governmental organisations like Grey Man moving in.

Its president, who goes by the pseudonym 'John Curtis', says there are many difference types of groups working in Cambodia, and some are more useful than others.

CURTIS: I think Cambodia's probably got more NGOs than any other country in the world and to a degree they're probably all fighting a little bit to find people to rescue. Yes, they are helpful in that they will often place these girls into education and that but I think 87 per cent of those involved in anti-trafficking are religious groups and many of these groups they do have an underlying compulsion to convert these kids unfortunately, but I suppose better that than being stuck in a brothel.

HOFMAN: Grey Man is made up mostly of former members of the Australian police force and Special Service Air Service regiment and has rescued 108 child sex workers in the last three years.

Of those, about 60 per cent of those have stayed out of the sex industry. The other 40 per cent, often with nowhere else to go, have gone back.

Grey Man and many of the other anti-trafficking groups organise re-integreation projects and training to help the victims find an alternative role in society.

But it hasn't been enough to stop hundreds of rescued victims simply slipping through the cracks and back into the industry.

SAKULPITAKPHON: I have to give credit to the Cambodian goverment that in the past couple of years they have really taken the time and effort to create a stronger legal framework; improve collaborations between government officals, law enforcement and NGOs at the ground level. The police by themselves would have a difficult time getting all the information. As a member of an international NGO I think the work of NGOs is of great importance but I think you have to understand too that there are many types of NGOs.

HOFMAN: Sure, and by different types you mean there are smaller ones that might not adhere to the procedures in the same way that you might?

SAKULPITAKPHON: Exactly, because I think each organisation has their own capacity and understanding of issue because sometimes a lot of people have great intentions but if they don't understand what's going on or don't have the proper guidance and guidelines than they could still tumble and have mistakes.

HOFMAN: The Cambodian government stepped-up its efforts to limit these mistakes and tackle the issue more effectively around the year 2000.

However, the number of cases of child sex trafficking is still on the increase.

Christian Guth, a law enforcement advisor who works with the Cambodian Ministry of the Interior and anti-child-trafficking agencies, says there are many reasons for this, ranging from persistant poverty to the complexity of prosecuting offenders.

GUTH: These NGOs are doing very good work, because they are close to the community and they are reporting cases to the police so if things can be successful for the future here. If things can progress it's because there is, first point, strong commitment; second point: people who accept to be trained to make things going forward as with the police this is the case and third thing: international support given. Without this support I think it would be very difficult.

HOFMAN: And the Cambodian General Commissioner has just approved a new set of police guidelines on conducting rescue operations and arresting offenders.

It will be presented to members of the police force next week.

Aussies rescue four child sex workers [in Aranyaprathet, Thailand]

September 13, 2010
AAP

AN AUSTRALIAN organisation comprising ex-police and special forces soldiers has rescued four child sex workers from an illegal brothel near the Thailand-Cambodia border.

The team of volunteer operatives from The Grey Man, a Brisbane-based charity, staged the successful operation at a brothel in the Thailand town of Aranyaprathet, 1km from the Cambodian border, on Saturday.

Organisation president John Curtis said the brothel trafficked girls from Vietnam and Cambodia to Thailand where they were being offered to customers for sex.

"The Grey Man team in an initial investigation obtained video and audio and then called in the Royal Thai Police force for assistance," Mr Curtis said.

"The Thai unit was briefed on the location and a plan formulated.

"The Grey Man operatives then re-entered the brothel with police nearby ready to conduct a raid."

Mr Curtis said 20 Thai police officers were involved in the raid with the Grey Man team - all of whom had a background in the police force or in Australian special forces.

He said four Cambodian girls aged between 14 and 15 were rescued from padlocked rooms with bars on the windows.

"Thai police made multiple arrests including the Mama San (brothel manager) and a number of Thai males assisting in the operation of the brothel," Mr Curtis said.

The girls are currently being cared for by Thai government officials before spending a year at a Khmer centre for vocational training in Cambodia.

The Grey Man's team leader for the operation, who asked not to be identified, labelled the operation as a good outcome.

"Working with the Thai police has shown us that the Thai government is serious about tackling the problem of human trafficking," he said.

In January, Grey Man volunteers also rescued two Vietnamese girls, aged 10 and 14, from a brothel in Cambodia.

Cambodian Opposition Leader Featured In Anti-Child Trafficking Film Premiere in NYC

Sun Jun 27, 2010
By Jim Luce
Daily Kos

I attended the world premier of REDLIGHT this week in New York City, and was overwhelmed by the plight of children not just in Cambodia but around the world who find themselves locked in a perverse world where their innocence is sold by the hour. Not only in Phnom Penh, but according to the experts, even in Brooklyn.

Mu Sochua spoke after the film with, along with UNICEF Global Chief of Child Protection Dr. Susan Bissell, Guy Jacobson, and Israeli actress Adi Ezroni who helped direct the film.

According to REDLIGHTChildren.org:

Every single day children are kidnapped or stolen and forced into the global, multi-billion dollar sex industry. Interpol estimates that this trafficking of children and young women is the third largest international criminal activity.

Its scope is shocking. According to UNICEF, over two million children are involved — from kids around the world who are kidnapped from their families to children victimized on the Internet via community sites and chatrooms.

The deeply moving film REDLIGHT points out the staggering statistic that over two million children under 18 years are exploited each year. They can be raped 20 - 30 times a day, and up to half of them will die from shock, torture, drugs, and/or AIDS. The film also shows you a few real children and tells their stories.

One woman who has dedicated her life to opposing the systems that enslave children is Mu Sochua, a Member of Parliament in Cambodia – and a top leader of the opposition known as the Sam Rainsy Party, named after exiled leader Sam Rainsy.

Mu Sochua is one of the leading advocates of children in her native Cambodia, yet may be imprisoned upon her return for her defiance of the corrupt government in power there – the government that allows child slavery.

I first met Sochua when she visited the U.S. last spring. I wrote about her amazing story for the Huffington Post: Cambodian Parliament Member Mu Sochua Visits U.S., Speaks on Lack of Human Rights at Home (link). She struck me as the Cory Aquino or the Aung San Suu Kyi of Cambodia.

Although adults loom large in the child trafficking debate, at the end of the day it is about the lives of innocent children. I personally cannot imagine having an older man hold a gun to my son’s head.

The film REDLIGHT, produced and narrated by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Lucy Liu, is about two women in Cambodia – Sochua and Somaly Mam, a former child prostitute – who have dedicated their lives to social justice and supporting the children who face injustice. See the film’s trailer on Vimeo.

Deftly blending horror and compassion, hope and futility, REDLIGHT is the second film in a trilogy that is changing the dynamics of child trafficking globally. Filmmaker Guy Jacobson has mastered the emotional edge of sexual slavery and manages to bring it to us in our sterile lives so that we get it – and want to stop it. The photography of the film is superb, with the breathtaking beauty of Cambodia juxtaposed with the squalid conditions of the children forced into Phnom Penh brothels.

The narration by Lucy Liu is familiar enough so that we are able to handle the unfamiliar – the evil that is pedophilia. The quality of the film assures that its message will resound with audiences around the world as it is sure to win awards from Cannes to Sundance. More amazing than the film is the dangers Guy Jacobson overcame to film it in the shadow of the mafia, for whom human life holds no sanctity.

REDLIGHT is a brutally honest, gut-wrenching film that is the antithesis of a Hollywood feel-good flick. This is not a ‘veg-out’ movie, but rather a get-involved film. The cinematography is exquisite, the narrative riveting, and the plot like rivers meandering through the delta that cross each other again and again.

This film is the perfect tool to us for social change – in this case the eradication of child trafficking and sexual slavery. Guy Jacobson is a master of film, and Mu Sochua is a committed human rights activist and political leader. The many other members of the team are equally brilliant. Share this important film with your friends and make a group decision to do something. The children have no one else.

I spoke to Thida Sam from the University of Michigan after the Premiere. Thida, a spokesperson for Grassroots Women for Change, shared these thoughts with me:

The solution to child trafficking is to make the perpetrators accountable for their actions -- both legally and socially. As for the legal mechanisms, those discussed at the premiere are the best approaches we have today, particularly those related to transnational cooperation.

But even more importantly we need to make it socially unacceptable for offenders. Too often, I've overheard expatriates and tourists in Phnom Penh bragging about their conquests to a dismayed audience of friends. From what I've experienced in Cambodia and the U.S., people simply turn a blind eye to these situations, particularly if the offender is a friend or a white, middle- or upper-class male. We need to have the same disgust for sex abusers as many people have for prostitutes.

For many poor rural families, there aren't a lot of other options than to sell one of their children for cash. As an example, imagine if it were a drought year and the choice was to sell a child or feed the rest of the family. We have insurance options and safety nets built into our system to keep us from starving.

If there were stronger social safety nets (i.e. more and better primary and secondary schools, crop insurance for subsistence farming families, stronger land tenure and titling rights, etc.), these families would have more options to choose from. Instead of vilifying the poor, we need to better understand some of the structural constraints in place that force families to make these kinds of decisions.

I also think that Jacobson and his team should explicitly address the difference between forced and voluntary sex work. The former is human slavery, whereas the latter is an entirely different situation altogether. In a Puritanical society like ours, most people have a gut reaction to sex-related topics, and in some ways I feel like this documentary capitalized on that general discontent.

The girls depicted in the film were slaves, with absolutely no free will and control over their bodies and their lives, and we should carve out a new type of disgust for that type of behavior, as opposed to the one society has for prostitutes.

I find that the situation in Cambodia particularly troubling, especially with the impunity afforded to not only men, but white men in particular. White men in Cambodia bring with them money and a great deal of influence in social situations, and people generally defer to them. This is something I haven't seen in any of the other countries I've worked in.

I work with Sochua on gender and land rights-related issues in Cambodia, and recently gave a lecture to undergraduates at the University of Michigan on her work with women and children. To be brief, she is an inspiration to us all, and is making significant changes to the social and political landscape of Cambodia.

The sympathetic audience at the Premiere was able to pose questions to the distinguished panel.

I am particularly worried about Mu Sochua. She left New York yesterday for Manila, but will then return to Phnom Penh where she faces arrest by the corrupt government there. As I covered in the Huffington Post, Sochua was called a whore by the head of the government and she demanded an apology. Not getting one, she sued.

Her case was thrown out by the government court. And then the government sued her, stating that by having challenged them, she had offended the state and must pay a fine. Sochua, of course, refused. But now, because of this, she might be arrested when she arrives next week.

Please help me monitor her travels. If the eyes of the world are upon her, she has more of a chance than if she travels alone in darkness. I support Mu Sochua as a global leader and human rights activist because she brings light to so many children – and the hope of a better future.

All photos by Arthur Eisenberg (www.nycArthur.com)

Spectacular Sold-Out Premier of Anti-Child Trafficking Film in NYC

Daughter Malika with the human rights activist, politician and mother Mu Sochua.

June 27, 2010
Jim Luce.Thought Leaders and Global Citizens
The Huffington Post

Cambodian Parliament Member Mu Sochua received a standing ovation from the sold-out, standing room-only crowd at the red carpet world premier of REDLIGHT last week. Produced and narrated by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Lucy Liu, the film left many stunned and some in tears. It is that wrenching.

"I am not a victim in Cambodia, but a survivor of Cambodia!," Sochua told the guests present. "In the darkest recess of human trafficking, there is hope!" The film featured the work of both Sochua and Somaly Mam, forming a narrative of the children they have helped out of the pits of exploitation - such as Reena and Sokha.

Deftly blending horror and compassion, hope and futility, REDLIGHT is the second film in a trilogy that is changing the dynamics of child trafficking globally. Filmmaker Guy Jacobson has mastered the emotional edge of sexual slavery and manages to bring it to us in our sterile lives so that we get it - and want to stop it. The photography of the film is superb, with the breathtaking beauty of Cambodia juxtaposed with the squalid conditions of the children forced into the country's unspeakable brothels.

Rarely does a film have such in-depth access to the characters it follows. REDLIGHT weaves together the touching stories of its subjects into an inspirational journey for the audience. It is a true accomplishment in filmmaking.

The narration by Lucy Liu is familiar enough so that we are able to handle the unfamiliar. The quality and sensitivity of the film assures that its message will resound with audiences around the world as it is sure to win awards from Cannes to Sundance. If you chose to see only one documentary this year, make sure it is REDLIGHT.

More amazing than the film is the dangers Guy Jacobson overcame to film it in the shadow of the mafia, for whom human life holds no sanctity. He continues to risk his life daily fighting to expose and sabotage organized crime's most lucrative business.

Guy Jacobson, along with Lucy Liu, Mu Sochua, Somaly Mam, and child slavery expert
Kevin Bales, are leading advocates to end child trafficking.

After the film, Sochua told the many gathered, "The movie was so real I could smell the brothel and feel the T.B. in the hospital. My Cambodia is this film." Sochua is a politician and a human rights activist. "I am a member of the Cambodian parliament - a member of the Opposition - who has been stripped of my immunity," she told the hushed audience. She represents the Sam Rainsy Party.

Guy Jacobson spoke after the film with Mu Sochua, UNICEF Global Chief
of Child Protection Dr. Susan Bissell, and Israeli actress Adi Ezroni.

Sochua has refused to pay a frivolous fine imposed on her by the corrupt court there for 'defaming' the Prime Minister because she sued him for calling her a whore. "When I go back, I might be put in jail."

"My goal is to be re-elected and continue the fight for justice," she told us. "Justice! Hope!," she reminded us. "Justice is my own pursuit," Sochua said.

Guy Jacobson is a passionate filmmaker who understand child trafficking - and exposes it.

As I wrote last week, not often does a filmmaker present both an untenable social problem - and its solution. Guy Jacobson has done that. As filmmaker, former banker and lawyer, Guy's past and present reflected much of the audience comprised from the top ranks of the arts, finance and law. LexisNexis is the film's major corporate sponsor.

LexisNexis' involvement made a deep impression on many of the film viewers. "LexisNexis is to be commended for their support. It is wonderful that they have put their resources behind such an important problem," Dr. Lucie Lapovsky stated. Roberta Cooper added, "It is critical that corporations take a role in this international problem, as has LexisNexis, among others in the travel and business community. Their important work should be publicized and praised widely."

Mu Sochua is empathetic to the stories these girls, one a victim and the other her big sister.

The brilliant film REDLIGHT is shown from the perspective of two Cambodian women opposed to childhood sexual slavery. One, Sochua, and the other Somaly Mam, a woman who escaped the brothels to dedicate her life to freeing others. Child trafficking expert Kevin Bales, author of Ending Slavery and President of Free the Slaves, is also interviewed in the film. See the film's trailer on Vimeo.

Filmmaker Guy Jacobson and his team have made a gut-wrenching plea to end child trafficking.

The deeply moving film points out that staggering statistic that 2.5 million children aged 18 months to 18 years are exploited for their young bodies each year. They can be raped 20 - 30 times a day, and up to half of them will die from shock, torture, drugs, and/or AIDS. But these numbers are difficult to grasp. The film also shows you a few real children and tells their tales. That anyone can get.

I interviewed many audience members after the Premiere. Dr. Lucie Lapovsky of Lapovsky Consulting told me:

Child trafficking is a complicated issue and I certainly do not have the solution. Clearly, traffickers should be prosecuted and not granted any leniency. Certainly, the film left me with the feeling that the economic problems in Cambodia exacerbate the situation.

The brothels should be outlawed or there should at least be aggressive enforcement to make sure that there are not children involved. Parents should be educated about what can happen to their children when they sell them.

I hope we can all be helpful in eradicating this terrible problem of child sex trafficking and can help make Cambodia a truly democratic country.

A red carpet premier in NYC is a million miles away from children forced into sex - or is it?

Roberta Cooper attended the Premier and told me after:

The 'solution' lies in a multi-pronged, coordinated effort that includes the police and the judiciary and the press. There should be consequences for the patrons of the trafficked women and girls. One area that the film did not focus on is girls and women who are transported to other countries, including the United States. We need international sanctions and severe consequences for the perpetrators as well as assistance for the victims. United Nations initiatives are important as well.

I did see guy's other film Holly. I thought both films were excellent, but REDLIGHT affected me more. It had the narrative elements of Holly but was a documentary.

Particularly important is Sochua's work -- and also that of Somaly Mam -- to give the victims a place in their communities, counseling, and training in work through which they can become economically self-sufficient. It is very difficult for the rescued girls to overcome the stigmas placed on them by their own culture.

REDLIGHT is the second in Guy's trilogy, known as the K11 Project. Holly was the first in 2007, the story of a 12-year old prostitute who captures the jaded heart of a foreigner living in Cambodia who in turn goes out of his way to rescue her from the criminal element that controls her. Holly premiered at the United Nations, with honorary committee members including Susan Sarandon and Hillary Clinton.

The main theater was completely full, and another audience watched from the adjacent theater.

The REDLIGHT Children Campaign originally aimed at pressuring governments to enact or amend legislation to address this issue more effectively and allocate more resources towards enforcement of laws. This has proven to be difficult. Now, in addition to the original strategy, Guy wants to make it more difficult and costly for perpetrators to sexually abuse children. REDLIGHT Children has partnered with its sponsor LexisNexis to create both an international case law database for trafficking, and a trafficking offenders' database to assist lawmakers and prosecutors.

"REDLIGHT" director Guy Jacobson with me and John Lee at the premiere in New York City.

Following this superb film I know I cannot answer one question: Why has the United States and Somalia not signed the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Children (CRC)? As founder of Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW), I demand that our own nation takes responsibility for the lives of the children whose innocence, safety - and often lives - have been so terribly compromised. Mr. President, we owe this to these defenseless children.

For further issues, facts and the rule of law, see LexisNexis website. All photos by Arthur Eisenberg (Arthur@nycArthur.com).

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.

Former sex slave fights illegal trade

"Girls are taught only shame and ignorance about their bodies and men have their first sexual experience in brothels. Rape is the only thing they know." Photo: AFP

June 22, 2010
AAP

Somaly Mam emerged from a life of sex slavery in Cambodia to become a champion of women's rights and one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people on the planet.

Abandoned by her parents, Mam was raped at 12, forced to marry at 14 and then sold into prostitution.

She suffered years of abuse before escaping with the help of a Medicin Sans Frontieres worker, whom she later married.

Mam has never had any formal schooling, yet she now speaks five languages.

She has become a tireless activist heading two organisations which fight sexual slavery, and has received international humanitarian awards.

Mam spoke about her extraordinary life during her first visit to Australia, in between a flurry of book signings, public lectures and meetings with politicians.

Her autobiography, The Road of Lost Innocence, has been reprinted many times.

It is a grim story of abuse - young lives broken by rape, torture and starvation together with betrayal by the very people who should have protected their own children.

Poverty also causes Cambodian families to sell their daughters into prostitution.

Mam says her story is symptomatic of a country with a long history of treating females worse than livestock.

"Cambodian society is about violence and submission," she told AAP.

"That smile people associate with gentle Cambodian women is a lie.

"It's always been like that. Women have been beaten slaves since before the Khmer Rouge, who killed any compassion there was.

"Although the situation is changing, 30 years later Cambodian society is still struggling. People only care about themselves."

Cambodians are a silent people, Mam says, and women's suffering is also endured in silence, compounded by a lack of education in all spheres.

"Girls are taught only shame and ignorance about their bodies and men have their first sexual experience in brothels. Rape is the only thing they know."

Up to 70 per cent of brothel clients are Cambodian men and the remaining 30 per cent are foreigners including paedophiles targeting children, she says.

Although Mam was able to escape her past by living in France for a while with her French husband Pierre, she continues to be haunted by nightmares and post-traumatic stress.

Mam says she felt driven to rescue girls like herself. Together with Pierre she started saving victims of sexual slavery in Cambodia even though police and corrupt politicians were as bad as the pimps and clients who wanted her gone.

She was one of the founding members of AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances), which has rescued and rehabilitated over 4000 women since 1996.

Now divorced, Mam says her traumatic past makes it impossible for her to be in a relationship.

But becoming a mother helped her feel love for the first time.

Mam has three children aged 18, 14 and eight. The oldest girl, Ning, is her sister's daughter whom she adopted.

"I'm not a gentle girl and life has been a fight, but out of this, and becoming a mother, came love."

The motherly love she discovered now fuels her mission in Cambodia, where she lives, to maintain three shelters for rescued sex slaves where their dignity is rebuilt through nurturing and education.

"It takes five minutes to rescue a girl and then the hard work starts," she says.

"First give them love until they feel it and they feel safe. Prove to them they can trust, and then start building life skills."

Bill Livermore, the US head of the Somaly Mam Foundation, says a key to ending trafficking is empowering women.

"Access to education, law and the economy is a must. If you take 50 per cent of the population out of those areas, countries do not thrive. Cambodia is very poor".

Livermore also advocates embarrassing governments who tolerate the sex slavery scourge "because governments won't change unless they are embarrassed to change".

He says the rehabilitation success rate in Cambodia soared after survivors were encouraged to rescue other girls.

"It went up from 65 per cent to 90 per cent because they were able to bond with the prostitutes and that's the kind of skill that a PhD from Harvard will never give you," he says.

The foundation was created in the US in 2007 and has a combination of corporate and private funding - not a cent comes from the United Nations or any government body.

Mam's high international profile helps, although old enemies remain. There have been threats on her life and she has a driver and a full-time bodyguard.

"If they kill me, there will be many more to take my place," she says.

SEX SLAVERY: THE FACTS

• One in 40 Cambodian girls is sold into sexual slavery
• Human trafficking is the second-largest organised crime in the world, even bigger than the drugs trade
• 2-4 million women and girls will be sold into prostitution worldwide over the next 12 months
• Over a million will be small children
• Some girls will be sold for as little as $US10 and will be as young as five
• Profits from sexual slavery are estimated at up to $US12 billion annually

Sources: US State Department, UNICEF, UN Office of Drugs and Crime
The Road of Lost Innocence, by Somaly Mam, is published by Virago Press.
For more info go to www.somaly.org and www.projectfutures.com

Mu Sochua to be guest speaker at the Red Carpet Screening of REDLIGHT in New York City

REDLIGHT Trailer from jillian selsky on Vimeo.

The World Premier Red-Carpet Screening & Fundraising Event of "Redlight" the movie - NYC

You are cordially invited to: The World Premier Red Carpet Screening of highly acclaimed “REDLIGHT” Monday, June 21st 2010 at Sva Theater, New York City, 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM screenings SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street, New York City.

Hosted by:

• Congresswomen Carolyn Maloney
• Ambassador Mark Lagon
• Ambassador Swanee Hunt
• Cécilia Attias
• Ashley Judd
• Cindi Leive
• Ron Livingston
• Lauren Bush
• Julia Ormond
• Petra Nemcova
• Elizabeth Berkley
• Greg Lauren

Please join us for the Red-Carpet World Premier Screening and Fundraising Event of Redlight on Monday, June 21st 2010, at the Sva Theater, located at 333 West 23rd Street in New York City. This special evening will be a multi-pronged event with two screenings offered.

Join us at 6:00 PM for the Official World Premier Red-Carpet Screening with limited tickets open to the public and 9:00 PM for the general public screening. Both screenings will be followed by a Q&A session featuring, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Mu Sochua, and Filmmakers Guy Jacobson and Adi Ezroni who both won the prestigious State Department’s Tip Report Global Hero Award for their work in combating human trafficking.

As a VIP guest, please join us for the VIP reception at the Cue Gallery, located nearby at 511 West 25th Street after the first screening. After the second screening, please join us for beverages in the Sva reception lobby. The proceeds from this event will go towards two nonprofit 501(c)(3), anti-trafficking organizations, RedLight Children and Restore NYC, both working tirelessly in the fight against human slavery.

6:00 PM for the Official World Premier Red Carpet Screening (with limited tickets open to the public)

Red Carpet VIP Tickets - $1000 (As a VIP guest please join us for the VIP reception at CUE Gallery, 511 West 25th Street.)

Red Carpet General Public Tickets - $100 (with open bar at the After-Party from 11:00-12:00 midnight at Juliette Supper Club at 538 W. 21st St. (between 10th Ave & West St.)

9:00 PM for the Red Carpet Premier Screening open to the General Public

Red Carpet General Public Tickets - $50 (with open bar at the After-Party from 11:00-12:00 midnight at Juliette Supper Club at 538 W. 21st St. (between 10th Ave & West St.) Please see below for a full outline of the evening:

First Screening at 6:00 PM:
5:00 PM – Press arrives 5:30-6:30 PM – Red-Carpet and Step & Repeat Photo Opportunities
6:30 PM - Introduction by Keynote Speaker (TBD)
6:45 PM- Screening of the film “Redlight” (1 hour, 10 minutes)
8:00 PM- Q&A with Filmmakers Guy, Jacobson and Adi Ezroni, & Mu Sochua
8:30 -11:00 PM – VIP reception @ The Cue Gallery, 511 West 25th Street (8 min. walk)

Second Screening at 9:00 PM:
9:00 PM- Red-Carpet and Step & Repeat Photo Opportunities
9:30 PM – Short introduction – Faith Huckel, Executive Director of Restore NYC
9:35 PM – Screening of the film “REDLIGHT” (1 hour, 10 minutes)
10:45 PM – Q&A with Filmmakers Guy, Jacobson and Adi Ezroni, Mu Sochua
11:00-12:00 Midnight- Reception in main lobby

About the Film:
Redlight Trailer from Jillian Selsky on Vimeo . UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Lucy Liu produced and narrated Redlight, an inspiring and powerful feature documentary about child sexploitation. Filmed over a four year period, REDLIGHT focuses on the personal stories of the victims and two remarkable advocates for change: grass-roots activist Somaly Mam and politician Mu Sochua. Both have since been nominated for the Noble Peace Prize and won other numerous human rights awards around the world.

For more information about the film, visit http://www.redlightthemovie.com

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO VIEW CAMPAIGN ARCHIVE

Women change lives worldwide

The Rev. Ann Walling, left, and Chantha Nguon wear Mekong Blue scarves at a fashion show in Nashville. (FILE / THE TENNESSEAN)

May 8, 2010
By Marjorie Mason
Tennessee Voices
The Tennessian

Before I had kids, I dismissed Mother's Day as a Hallmark holiday — a harmless but relatively insignificant occasion to let greeting card companies and florists help you honor your mom.

Then I had kids, and my attitude changed. I work hard for my kids, picking up toys, washing dirty laundry and enduring extended arguments about the merits of regular tooth brushing. Now I think, "Heck yeah, I deserve a day!"

I know I am blessed. But within the last year I have begun to appreciate just how fortunate I am. I have my mother-in-law, Ann Walling, to thank for that. Ann introduced me to Chantha Nguon and the women of the Stung Treng Women's Development Center in rural Cambodia.

Chantha is a founder and head of the center, which works to empower women to escape lives as virtual slaves in the sex trade — their only option for income — through job training and meaningful employment. In Cambodia they have a saying, "Man is gold. Woman is a skirt." Our friend Chantha set out to alter that to: "Man is gold. Woman is a diamond." Beyond the work to support women, Stung Treng also provides child care and education for their children, building a brighter future for their daughters and sons.

Over the past year, our family, led by my mother-in-law, has worked with Chantha and the women of the center to market their line of silk scarves in the U.S. under the brand Mekong Blue Scarves. Through word of mouth and an online store at www.bluesilk.org, in less than six months Mekong Blue has made a world of difference for the women of Stung Treng Women's Development Center. Sales for the center are up 76 percent. Seventeen more women have jobs because of demand. Salaries for the weavers increased 20 percent. The center's school will be able to enroll 50 more children because of the year's success.

All of these numbers bring me deep gratitude, but the most uplifting show of success came in an email from Chantha after a near sell-out the week of Christmas. She wrote that the weavers were overjoyed by the success. "Now they feel like diamonds."

As I reflect on the prosperity we could so easily take for granted, I am humbled by the thought of our friends in Cambodia who are literally weaving new futures for themselves and their families. Mother's Day reminds me that women and mothers do need to be celebrated, lest we undervalue them. This year I'll give cards and flowers to the special women in my life, but I'll also celebrate the millions of women for whom such an expression of appreciation would be a great luxury. I'll celebrate Chantha Nguon, the SWDC and everyone else working to change the lives of women and mothers around the globe.

Marjorie Mason and her husband, Tom, are the owners of Bluesilk.org.

Angelina Jolie: Jolie narrates Cambodian ‘sex slave’ horror!

Wednesday, December 02, 2009
http://www.entertainmentandshowbiz.com

As an ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), actor Angelina Jolie has journeyed extensively around the world and has been privy to countless unfathomable plights that some desperately ‘unfortunate’ and ‘ungodly’ people go through for sheer survival.

She’s been to some places where not many ‘privileged’ people have cared to visit, places where the people for decades have suffered silently, with no ‘kindly’ ear to call out to for help!

Whether it be in the ‘dark continent’ (read: Africa) racked by poverty, illness, gross apathy and neglect or the distant Cambodia where millions suffer still from the ravages of the Khmer Rouge guerillas, Jolie’s eyes have soaked in lot’s of unshed tears around the world.

And now in a bid to raise global awareness about the desperately sorry state of women in Third World countries, the sensuous actor has brought out a special video narrating the ‘horror’ excesses committed on a hapless Cambodian ‘sex slave’.

The video, aired on Oprah Winfrey’s Talk Show on Tuesday, recounts the mind numbing horrors committed on the hapless 13 year old Cambodian girl.

Feeding in some more chilling details of the excesses that this poor girl has had to suffer, Jolie said that the girl was forcefully picked up from her home when a tender 13 and pushed into the dark world of prostitution and sex slavery!

And what’s more, despite suffering such horrors silently over decades, the girl has actually lived on to tell her tale!

Jolie further revealed, “Virgins bring in hundreds of dollars for brothel owners and are high in demand for men with aids, who believe having sex with a virgin will cure their disease. Because these enslaved girls are forbidden to request condoms, they are vulnerable to STD’s (sexually transmitted diseases) aids and pregnancies.”

Police turning a blind eye to gang rape

Monday, 28 September 2009
The Phnom Penh Post

Dear Editor,

Comment: I do agree with Soprach that government has repeatedly operated unsustainable policies. For instance, sex workers in the public will be legally charged but the sex consumers are flying free into the brothels. On the other hand, sex workers have been often raped or forced to have sex but they dare not take those actions to the police. So it is pathetic for those Cambodian sex workers who are facing free rape/sex, bribing the police, and charged of coming out to the street. In the meantime, the rich and company investors enjoy evicting the poor families and resell the lands...only Cambodia that the weak will become weaker, the poor will become poorer; the strong will become stronger, the rich will become richer, and the criminal perpetrators have happilily flied free in this land...Welcome to Cambodia!!

I am writing in response to your two articles: “Five men accused in Siem Reap gang rape” (September 22), which reported that a girl was raped by her boyfriend and four others; and “Seven men charged in girl’s rape and murder to face trial in Kampong Cham” (September 23), which reported that a girl was raped and killed by members of a youth gang, one of whom is her neighbour and who claimed he had fallen in love with her.

After reading the two articles, I experienced shock and felt so sad about the two victims, especially the child who was murdered after being raped. These brutal activities are not isolated cases but have been occurring regularly in the recent past and perhaps longer. In 2002, a study by PSI (Population Services International) on sexual relationships revealed sex workers in Phnom Penh were often victims of gang rape, or bauk (Khmer for “plus”) .

In 2003, a study by GAD/C (Gender and Development for Cambodia) revealed that female students were also sometimes victims of bauk. In 2004, a study by CARE International showed that bauk was not limited to Phnom Penh, but occurs across Cambodia. In 2009, a study by an independent researcher revealed that over 10 percent of a sample of young men not in a stable relationship had perpetrated bauk with a sex worker in the last three months.

We should urge the police and the courts to deal severely with the perpetrators of these two recent youth gang rape cases if they are found guilty. Note that the two cases seem copy-and-pasted from bauk cases that many youth perpetrators have learned and used against female sex workers.

In my opinion, police have failed to act in cases where sex workers have claimed they are gang raped. Not only do police fail to act in the event of bauk but sex-workers fear to bring charges, as they fear the police reaction – including arrest for “illegal business under the trafficking law”– even while the law remains silent on the issue of voluntary sex work.

In the past, when police cracked down on brothels, massage parlours, guest houses and hotels, police arrested the sex workers but allowed the men to go free.

The arrest of rapists and jail with so-called “re-education” is not sufficient. We call for the government, donors, youth workers and human rights groups to increase their interventions to change men’s attitude about bauk. Critically, the issue has to be raised through awareness in the school curriculum and outreach activities. We all have a responsibility to change the attitude of our young men so that violence against women and girls is actively discouraged.

Tong Sprach
Phnom Penh

Just because Alan Perry never saw "sex slaves" firsthand, does it mean that it does not exist in Cambodia?

Focus on Cambodia's Human Trafficking is Misleading

3/27/2009
By Alan Perry
Hawaii Reporter

"If Alan Perry's point of view is taken to the extreme, just because he never saw a Khmer Rouge soldier killing Cambodians in the 70s firsthand, does it mean that genocide never existed in Cambodia under the KR? The fact that Alan never heard about Afesip which is working with Cambodian police says a lot about Alan's knowledge of Cambodia, or lack thereof." - KI-Media

Rory Byrne's March 23rd article "Human Trafficking On the Rise in Cambodia" from VOA News is misleading and uninformed. The first glaring error is of course the misspelling of the Capitol City of Phnom Penh in the article. Let us hope that this is a simple editorial mistake and not an indication of how well he understood his subject matter. Unfortunately I think it may be the latter.

The real problem with the article is that it lacks perspective or any other viewpoint on the Human Trafficking issue. There is no dissenting voice or opinions reported. Cambodia has become for lack of a better word the worlds favorite sex "obsession". With daily breathless reportage on Human trafficking and child sex convictions one is left with the mistaken impression that Cambodia is a place where one can simply walk down the street and pick out your favorite 13 year-old girl or boy for an hours pleasure. This is simply not the case.

I first came to Cambodia 15 years ago and now have lived here for 2 years and own a business. In all that time I have never witnessed any such activity nor could I direct anyone to any place which deals in such a thing. I have traveled widely here and employ a number of Cambodians and in conversation with them I cannot find a single person that knows about the "sex slave" trade. I do however know that it is often the families of these girls and boys who send them away or sell them into "jobs" in prostitution. Many boys are sold into the military so their family can get the stipend the government gives out for that and many escape. Most of the girls, if the truth be known, are sent into this trade by their families, not lured there by strangers. Most are free to come and go as they please because having been sent there by the parents they often will stay out of respect and fear of the parents. The parents receive a payment, the girl is expected to work for a period of time.

This is not slavery, at worst it is indentured servitude. There is a very important difference. Of course no one wants to see children sent into the sex trade by anyone, let alone their parents, but I believe the notion that there are thousands of girls chained in basements being used as sex slaves defies logic. Most of Cambodia is a crowded and busy place especially the cities. Keeping something like this from the police would be very difficult here, to say nothing of the fact that I have never seen or heard of a house here with a basement. While many of the police are corrupt not all of them are by any means and there are many levels of police in a given area. This makes it especially difficult to keep slaves locked in your "basement" without your neighbors and the police finding out and reporting on you.

The article does not at any time cite one single credible study of this problem and for good reason...none exists. Some organizations such as World Vision raise millions of dollars in the U. S., Britain and Australia beating the child sex and human trafficking drum. Only a trickle of those funds are ever spent here in Cambodia actually doing anything about the problem. A problem that I would argue is no worse than in London, Honolulu or Des Moines.

The article goes on to cite how there were girls rescued from this business by the organization named in the article, one I have never heard of previously. It is written in such a way as to leave the impression that all these girls were "sex slaves". I would defy the writer or the organization cited to bring forth one credible person with that story. It seems clear to me that what is most likely is that there was financial incentive for these girls to leave or that they felt they had no other place to go if they left on their own. Many families wont take a girl back who has shamed them by working in this industry and many continue in the business for the very good financial rewards. Consider that the average wage of most Cambodians is often cited at less than one US dollar a day. A girl or boy working in the sex trade can make 10, 20 or 100 times this in a single day. With this they buy cell phones, motorcycles, nice clothes and send money home to the family. This scenario is the real story of the sex trade in Cambodia.

Many do it as a sideline, some go to school, and others do work in brothels. some come to escape the poverty and closeness of village life. Some of the young people that turn to this trade do it because they have lost a good job in a factory due to layoffs. Consider this the next time some well meaning organization asks you to help stamp out child labor in Cambodia, Thailand or where ever: If these young people lose their jobs often the next stop is to turn to prostitution to make sure they eat everyday. This is the real story of the sex trade.

People often fall into this trap when writing or reporting on Cambodia. With little or no knowledge of the country and it's people they rely instead on those with an axe to grind, an issue to promote or in the case of some organizations, money to be raised by keeping this issue on the front burner and sounding as horrible as possible. It would be nice to have a reporter ask some hard probing questions, explore the logic and interview others with a different viewpoint. Unfortunately Mr Byrne seemingly did none of that.

Alan Perry is a resident of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, and is with DevaRaja Villa and Bungalows, Intimate Stylish Personal Attentive. Reach him at aarthurperry@gmail.com

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.

Your comments on [Nicholas Kristof's] Poipet brothel column

January 10, 2009
By Nicholas Kristof
The New York Times

My Sunday column is about sex trafficking again. It’s based on interviews with brothel-owners and looks at how we can make sex slavery more risky and less profitable for those who engage in it. I think the key to eradicating it is to put ourselves more in the shoes of the traffickers; they’re profit-maximizing business people, and if we change their incentives they’ll turn to stealing motorcycles instead.

There’s been a lot of debate in the blog about how much coercion there is, and how meaningful coercion is. After a lot of interviews, my sense is that there is a steady continuum from adolescent girls who are absolutely imprisoned in brothels at one end, to adult women who freely decide that they can make more money in prostitution than in other fields. I’ve interviewed women in each category and in every shade inbetween.

On this visit, I revisited one teenage girl whom I had interviewed a couple of times earlier. She had been kidnapped and sold to a brothel in Poipet, imprisoned for a few weeks until her virginity was sold, and then she was beaten, locked up and forced to comply. To me, that was slavery. By the time I saw her in 2006, she was closely monitored and wasn’t given any cash, and she was still being beaten at times, but at times she was allowed on short trips outside the brothel. She wasn’t actually physically imprisoned and could have escaped if she had wanted. I offered to help her do so, but she hesitated for three reasons: She was afraid of being beaten up if caught; she was afraid that if she went home her parents and neighbors would figure out what had happened to her; and the brothel-owner claimed the girl owed her money and needed to repay the debt, and the girl kind of believed her. At that point, I wouldn’t exactly call her enslaved, but she certainly wasn’t free, either, and she was still a minor. When I interviewed her on this visit, the situation had evolved further: she was now free to come and go and hadn’t been beaten for a year, she said; on the other hand, she was still a minor, may have been addicted to drugs provided by the brothel, and was kept in place partly by stigma. That’s a situation that started out as slavery but evolving into something more nuanced over the years.

By the way, I do encourage you to watch the video we prepared on the brothels of Poipet; it’s right beside the column.

If This Isn’t Slavery, What Is?

Long Pross (Photo: Nicholas D. Kristof/The New York Times)

Fighting Sex Trafficking in Cambodia

January 3, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The New York Times

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

Barack Obama’s presidency marks a triumph over the legacy of slavery, so it would be particularly meaningful if he led a new abolitionist movement against 21st-century slavery — like the trafficking of girls into brothels.

Anyone who thinks it is hyperbole to describe sex trafficking as slavery should look at the maimed face of a teenage girl, Long Pross.

Glance at Pross from her left, and she looks like a normal, fun-loving girl, with a pretty face and a joyous smile. Then move around, and you see where her brothel owner gouged out her right eye.

Yes, I know it’s hard to read this. But it’s infinitely more painful for Pross to recount the humiliations she suffered, yet she summoned the strength to do so — and to appear in a video posted online with this column — because she wants people to understand how brutal sex trafficking can be.

Pross was 13 and hadn’t even had her first period when a young woman kidnapped her and sold her to a brothel in Phnom Penh. The brothel owner, a woman as is typical, beat Pross and tortured her with electric current until finally the girl acquiesced.

She was kept locked deep inside the brothel, her hands tied behind her back at all times except when with customers.

Brothel owners can charge large sums for sex with a virgin, and like many girls, Pross was painfully stitched up so she could be resold as a virgin. In all, the brothel owner sold her virginity four times.

Pross paid savagely each time she let a potential customer slip away after looking her over.

“I was beaten every day, sometimes two or three times a day,” she said, adding that she was sometimes also subjected to electric shocks twice in the same day.

The business model of forced prostitution is remarkably similar from Pakistan to Vietnam — and, sometimes, in the United States as well. Pimps use violence, humiliation and narcotics to shatter girls’ self-esteem and terrorize them into unquestioning, instantaneous obedience.

One girl working with Pross was beaten to death after she tried to escape. The brothels figure that occasional losses to torture are more than made up by the increased productivity of the remaining inventory.

After my last column, I heard from skeptical readers doubting that conditions are truly so abusive. It’s true that prostitutes work voluntarily in many brothels in Cambodia and elsewhere. But there are also many brothels where teenage girls are slave laborers.

Young girls and foreigners without legal papers are particularly vulnerable. In Thailand’s brothels, for example, Thai girls usually work voluntarily, while Burmese and Cambodian girls are regularly imprisoned. The career trajectory is often for a girl in her early teens to be trafficked into prostitution by force, but eventually to resign herself and stay in the brothel even when she is given the freedom to leave. In my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, I respond to the skeptics and offer some ideas for readers who want to help.

Pross herself was never paid, and she had no right to insist on condoms (she has not yet been tested for HIV, because the results might be too much for her fragile emotional state). Twice she became pregnant and was subjected to crude abortions.

The second abortion left Pross in great pain, and she pleaded with her owner for time to recuperate. “I was begging, hanging on to her feet, and asking for rest,” Pross remembered. “She got mad.”

That’s when the woman gouged out Pross’s right eye with a piece of metal. At that point in telling her story, Pross broke down and we had to suspend the interview.

Pross’s eye grew infected and monstrous, spraying blood and pus on customers, she later recounted. The owner discarded her, and she is now recuperating with the help of Sina Vann, the young woman I wrote about in my last column.

Sina was herself rescued by Somaly Mam, a trafficking survivor who started the Somaly Mam Foundation in Cambodia to fight sexual slavery. The foundation is working with Dr. Jim Gollogly of the Children’s Surgical Center in Cambodia to get Pross a glass eye.

“A year from now, she should look pretty good,” said Dr. Gollogly, who is providing her with free medical care.

So Somaly saved Sina, and now Sina is saving Pross. Someday, perhaps Pross will help another survivor, if the rest of us can help sustain them.

The Obama administration will have a new tool to fight traffickers: the Wilberforce Act, just passed by Congress, which strengthens sanctions on countries that wink at sex slavery. Much will depend on whether Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton see trafficking as a priority.

There would be powerful symbolism in an African-American president reminding the world that the war on slavery isn’t yet over, and helping lead the 21st-century abolitionist movement.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

From brothel to boardroom

Somaly Mam at her organisation, anti trafficking NGO Afesip's offices in Phnom Penh last week. (Photo by: CHRISTOPHER SHAY)

Monday, 03 November 2008
Written by CRISTOPHER SHAY
The Phnom Penh Post

THE RISE OF AFESIP'S SOMALY MAM
As a child, Somaly Mam was sold into a brothel and never knew her real name. When she escaped from prostitution she chose the name Somaly, meaning "the necklace of flowers lost in the virgin forest", as it fit NWEidea of who she was at the time. In 1996 she and Pierre Legros, a French human rights worker, founded the anti-trafficking NGO Afesip ,of which Somaly Mam has been president of for the past 12 years. She is an internationally acclaimed activist: In 2006, she was Glamour Magazine's Woman of the Year and this year, won the World's Children's Prize. In Cambodia, she is a more controversial figure. Afesip, has been criticised for its cooperation with law enforcement agencies and for allegedly not allowing sex workers to leave the NGO's safehouses. Last year Somaly Mam released a critically acclaimed English-language translation of her memoir, The Road of Lost Innocence, which chronicles her rise from sex slave to activist.

Somaly Mam counts Tyra Banks, Hillary Clinton and the pope as acquaintances but still strives to help ‘victims' of prostitution

How do you feel about your newfound fame?

I'm not famous. We're still Afesip as normal. I feel normal. I just hope we can change the country, and we can get more people to pay attention to trafficking. People tend to keep talking and don't do enough acting. I'm fed up. I don't think I'm famous, but I'm here letting people know about what's going on in trafficking. People outside the country have to know too. Afesip does our work, and we are still small. We try to find solutions. We are a local organisation; we cannot find all the solutions. We have to have the political commitment to change.

Where does Afesip get its funding?

A lot of funds come from the Spanish [government], but also from the [United] States. We have funds from Queen Latifah and Barbara Walters. I was also lucky to meet Susan Sarandon, who helped me a lot.

What is your opinion about Cambodia's new anti-sex-trafficking law?

It's complicated. We should have law. The problem is the people who implement the law. When we passed the law, no one understood it. They didn't talk about it to the people. Afterwards, there were people playing with the law - the police - who always manage to find a way to take money. I think we should have the law, but we have to work very strongly on the law enforcement.

A few months ago, sex workers came together to protest the new anti-trafficking law.

I know that the law is not easy to understand. I know the law is not perfect for protecting the victims. I know that some articles are not clear. What I don't like is people who take the victims - I don't want to call them prostitutes, they're victims - who use them to fight against law. I just want to say to them, "Stop using these girls". They have to make their own decisions. When I saw associations using victims for politics, I wanted to know, "Why do you have to use them to fight?"

What's the state of the sex industry in Cambodia right now?

If you go to the streets, everything is closed down, but they're just closed in front. Underground, we have the problem again. We cannot say that right now is better. In my opinion, it's getting worse and worse. We cannot see them [prostitutes]. We cannot access them to give them condoms or bring them to hospitals. They are afraid of the law.

Could you explain how you work together with the government?

We cannot work without them. It's not easy. Some of them are bad. There is corruption, but some them are good. Right now, we've identified the people who are working hard like the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the police. We still have a problem with justice. The problem is the court. We also have some problems with the police in the countryside. They don't understand law enforcement involving victims. In Phnom Penh, it's better now.

When police take sex workers into custody, do they bring them to your clinic?

We work with the anti-trafficking police. Yes, they bring them to us. We also work directly with the [Ministry of] Social Affairs. They have a shelter. When they save the girl, they'll call us. We go there and try to talk to the girl and tell them about Afesip. If they agree to come, we bring them.

If a sex worker decides to come in the clinic, what happens then?

If they want, they can come. Some of them, we just say, "You should come visit us". It's not our staff always going to talk to them. The victims themselves come. Sometimes they agree to stay one week, and then they make the decision to go home or stay longer. If they ask us to bring them home, we bring them home.

Do all the girls make the decision to stay at Afesip?

Not all of them. Some of the victims are young. They are underage. We cannot let them go back into a brothel because they are seven or 12.

They stay because they are children. What I like to see is them becoming children again. They take off their make-up. It's my dream to see them playing and laughing again.

How does your organisation, Afesip, do its brothel rescues?

We are not rescuing. We are cooperating. When we know something, our investigations team tells the trafficking police. They are the best.

They can work with us. We cannot go into the street. We work with them. When they have our complaint, they go into the brothel to make sure there is a problem. Then, if someone signs an agreement saying we can go into a brothel to save the girl, then we go in. We are not saving them. We are going with the police.

How does your organisation determine which women are sex workers and which are sex slaves?

A lot of them have been raped before they become part of the sex industry. A lot of them when I go to see them, and I ask, ‘Why are you in the brothel? Why don't you want to get out?' A lot of them have psychological problems. They agree to sell themselves. They are sex slaves, because they have to survive. A lot of them say they are free, but for me, they are not free. They are the victims of the situation.

Are all women in brothels victims?

Yes. It's really hard when someone comes to me and tells me, "I had more then 10 clients who raped me with a plastic bag. I tell them we have Afesip, but they tell me, "I cannot now". I am surprised at all the girls who do come to Afesip.

Many of the girls, they are destroyed. They have problems because they feel guilty themselves. Give the victims time and try to work with them and prove to them that you really want to help them. You have to have patience.

How has your background as a former sex slave affected the way you run Afesip today?

I work by my emotions. What I was denied, I want to give to others. I want to give them love and trust. I'm not a manager. I have my team who manages for me.

I work by emotions. I just want to take care of the girls. We need both. We have to have heart and patience. I can find money for Afesip. Normally when you're president, you have to stay in the office, but I hate staying in the office.

Interview by Christopher Shay