June 22, 2009
Parade Magazine recently featured Somaly Mam in its Intellegence Report column. Here’s an excerpt:
” How does the Somaly Mam Foundation help other sex slaves?
It can take five minutes to raid a brothel but years for the rescued girls to recover. Some want to commit suicide. I show them that they can survive, they can have dignity. We have three shelters— two for vocational training, another for young children. We let them stay long-term. We help them find jobs. We are a family.”
You can read the full feature online:
Fighting to End Slavery – Parade.com
June 17, 2009
Somaly Mam was just recently featured on the global issues magazine on Deutsche Welle TV, called “GLOBAL 3000″. The video is available to stream or to download here:
http://www.dw-world.com/dw/article/0,,4269861,00.html
May 2, 2009
Somaly Mam was just named one of the world’s 100 most influential people of 2009 by Time Magazine. World-renowned actress, humanitarian, and U.N goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie wrote an impassioned endorsement of Somaly:
“The fact that she escaped makes her unique, but what makes her truly extraordinary is that she went back. While, understandably, most people would spend the rest of their lives quietly recovering from their wounds, Mam decided to confront the system that continues to victimize Cambodian girls.”
You can read the rest of Jolie’s thoughts on Somaly, as well as check out the entire Time 100 list, here.
February 2, 2009
In this video by the New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof visits Cambodia and meets Long Pross, a young woman who was forced into sexual slavery. Nicholas talks to Long about her harrowing experience in the brothels, and then visits what’s left of a brother that has been closed down. Long also discusses her rehabilitation with Somaly Mam, and her dreams for the future. You can view the 5-minute video here:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/01/03/opinion/1194837193498/the-face-of-slavery.html
January 12, 2009
New York Times columnist Nick Kristoff was just featured on NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrooke to discuss 21st century slavery. From the show summary:
“New York Times columnist Nick Kristof is calling for a new abolition movement: the abolition of 21st-century slavery — by which he means sex slavery.
The global sex trafficking of young girls, in numbers greater than the 19th-century Atlantic slave trade ever knew. Girls kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, maimed and degraded, every hour of every day.
George W. Bush has made a good start on attacking the problem, Kristof says. Barack Obama, he says, should finish it.
This hour, On Point: Sex trafficking, a new century’s slaves, and a new push for abolition.”
You can listen to the full show here: 21st Century Slavery
January 1, 2009
Nicholas Kristoff just wrote an op-ed in the New York times about Sina Vann’s heart-wrenching story. Sina was sold into slavery in Cambodia, but escaped (thanks to a raid organized by Somaly Mam), and now works with Somaly to fight human trafficking. From the article:
“After being freed, Sina began studying and eventually became one of Somaly’s trusted lieutenants. They now work together, in defiance of death threats from brothel owners, to free other girls. To get at Somaly, the brothel owners kidnapped and brutalized her 14-year-old daughter. And six months ago, the daughter of another anti-trafficking activist (my interpreter when I interviewed Sina) went missing.”
Check out the full article on the New York Times. Also, you can help the story reach others by voting it up on Reddit, a social news site, here. It’s already made the front page with over 670 votes, as of the time of this writing!
October 7, 2008
“Nicholas D. Kristof interviews Somaly Mam, who was sold to the brothels as a young teenager and now runs shelters for rescued girls.”
View the video here
October 1, 2008
“Abandoned as a child in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge’s murderous reign, Somaly Mam has no memory of her family and doesn’t know her true age or name. But she recalls when she was sold to a brothel.She traces a dramatic and haunting journey from sex slave to crusader against forced prostitution in her newly released memoir, “The Road of Lost Innocence,” which reads like a Dickensian tale of triumph over adversity.
Remarkably, she does not see her path from a remote mountain region of Cambodia to an international campaigner as awe-inspiring.
“I never feel that way, I’m still Somaly. I used to work in the fields and now I help victims,” she told Reuters in an interview.”
Read the full article here.
September 27, 2008
A recently published article in the Washington post discusses Somaly Mam’s efforts to lobby Congress for stricter human trafficking laws, and recounts her harrowing childhood spent in a brothel:
“Along the way, somehow she learned not to be silent. That is the most extraordinary part of her shocking life’s journey, an achievement she still cannot fully explain. Her hard-earned ability to speak out has helped her rescue 4,000 girls and women from brothels in the last decade. It has helped her build one of the largest nongovernmental organizations in Cambodia, with 150 employees, sheltering 220 women and girls in that country, with more in shelters in Vietnam and Laos. And earlier this month it brought her to Capitol Hill to urge members of Congress to pass a law against human trafficking.
“What can we do to help you?” asked Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), receiving Mam in her office.
“Your pressure can help,” Mam replied, saying that the United States can be an example to Cambodia and other countries where trafficking is rampant.”
You can read the full article here.
A new op-ed in the New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristoff discusses Somaly Mam’s fight against human trafficking, her new book, and recounts her inspiring story:
“World leaders are parading through New York this week for a United Nations General Assembly reviewing their (lack of) progress in fighting global poverty. That’s urgent and necessary, but what they aren’t talking enough about is one of the grimmest of all manifestations of poverty — sex trafficking.
This is widely acknowledged to be the 21st-century version of slavery, but governments accept it partly because it seems to defy solution. Prostitution is said to be the oldest profession. It exists in all countries, and if some teenage girls are imprisoned in brothels until they die of AIDS, that is seen as tragic but inevitable. “
Read the full article here.
