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Photo courtesy of Roland Berger Stiftung
Browsing the chatter around the Internet, I recently came across this potentially damaging Cambodia Daily article from last month that, to my knowledge, hasn’t yet sparked a follow-up investigation from other news organizations. (For the moment I’m outside of Cambodia and don’t have access to the Daily, which doesn’t publish an online edition.)
The piece raises questions over whether the prominent anti-trafficking activist, Somaly Mam, exaggerated or fabricated details of a well-known 2004 raid on one of her shelters for former sex workers. It also asks whether, in a supposed revenge attack in 2006, human traffickers really kidnapped and gang-raped her daughter as she claims.
These two episodes bolstered Somaly’s heroic image abroad, and probably helped her fundraising efforts. They were documented in detail in her autobiography.
To give some background, Somaly is a global face of the anti-trafficking movement in Cambodia, and a former sex worker who claims to have escaped forced servitude when she was younger. Through her non-profit group Afesip, she now frees other trafficked women through brothel raids that have attracted controversy. She’s also a favorite of Angelina Jolie and New York Times columnist Nick Kristof.
Somaly’s French ex-husband and former head of Afesip, Pierre Legros, brought forward the allegations in response to claims she made at a United Nations conference last month. In her speech, Somaly said that in 2004, Cambodian soldiers entered her rehabilitation center and took a number of protected girls, killing eight of them. Legros denies the second part, telling the Daily:
No one has been killed in that story…We became political actors at that time and Somaly became a political actor. So saying that [eight people were killed] at the UN is, I think, a big mistake from her side.
The story notes that, while the US State Department condemned the raid at the time, no deaths were reported. It also alleges the women in Somaly’s center were being held against their will and “forced their way out.”
Commenting on the abduction of their daughter in Battambang — an episode that became a legend thanks to Glamour — Legros told the newspaper that she simply ran off with her boyfriend.
Legros says he came forward with this information out of concern for their daughter’s privacy. It’s not clear whether he’s also acting out of a grudge against his ex-wife, who he divorced in 2008, or whether he’s onto something that merits a closer look.
After all, Legros is not the first to make these claims. About three years ago, one former Afesip employee and one sex worker who stayed in a center explained to me, in very similar detail to Legros’s account, that Somaly may have played with the facts in the abduction account (though they didn’t mention the 2004 raid).
That’s not to say Somaly is lying, or to diminish the value of her organization’s work. It just means that potential donors and volunteers should apply healthy skepticism before they stand behind her marketing pitch, or that of any other nonprofit.
If the allegations against her are true, though, this wouldn’t be the first time a prominent activist, campaigning for a trendy cause, has been caught fudging autobiographical facts.
When I was doing some research about human trafficking a year ago, I came by a booth of afesip on an UN event. I was askng for some numbers, how many women were rescued and what happend to them, and I was turned down by them. They were quite rude, asking me why I want to know this. Also, I could not get much detailed information from brochures and the website beside a lot of begging for donations and general bla bla. I am not denying human trafficking, but I am convinced that it is more a NGO scheme than a problem to the often described extend. And as mentioned in a Cambodian newspaper recently, women are scared about some of the NGOs now, since they don’t want to end up in the garment industry.
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Great piece. I think the Phnom Penh Post had some articles in early 2008 by Cat Barton, I believe, that had claims from the sex workers involved that Somaly Mam wasn’t telling the truth. If I remember right, people who Mam said were gangsters stealing them from Afesip, the sex workers said were their friends and boyfriends trying to rescue them from forced detention. I’m pretty sure that even before I arrived in Cambodia in 2008, some of her stories had already been debunked (like what Glamour reported). Again before I arrived in 2008, I believe the Post had a story about sex workers protesting her. She’s not well liked among the sex workers I talked to, and Afesip does not have a great reputation for being able to take care of the mental well being of the former sex workers and sex slaves who end up there. Here’s my interview with her from when I first arrived: http://khmernz.blogspot.com/2008/11/from-brothel-to-boardroom.html
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Perhaps more to the point, has there ever been a thorough vetting of Somaly Mam’s full biography? How much of what she claims about her personal history is factual and how much is fabricated?
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Are you writing a biography of Somaly? This would have been more interesting if some other perspective was provided beyond lies and truth. Ooooh an NGO figurehead could have been lying… And? Mentioning Angelina Jolie and support from celebrities lending to her prominence does not make this more interesting. I feel like I’ve just digested an episode of Murdoch’s Southeast Asian version of ‘A Current Affair’.
“That’s not to say Somaly is lying, or to diminish the value of her organization’s work.”
Why isn’t it? That’s exactly what this is. You don’t want to diminish the value of her organization’s work, that’s all well and good – so why not write something new about anti-trafficking itself than further comment on speculation? You’ve seemingly got the experience to do so – so why not?
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Somaly’s stories change all the time.
First her daughter was abducted by traffickers, but saved.
Then she was abducted and sold to a brothel. The latest version by Nicholas Krisroff, the white crusader of the NYT is that she was sold to a brothel and filmed with customers and the videos sold on the Internet….
Many of Somaly’s other stories change. Her lie at the recent UN trafficking High Level Meeting that 8 girls were murdered by police in a raid on her centre has been proven false by the UN Human Rights Office in Ca,Nokia and her usual allies at the US Embassy have also said it is false.
AFESIP Cemtres in Cambodia routinely detain sex workers illegally and Somaly says she does this to give them time to think about whether they want to stay. Sex worker organisations in Cambodia have been documenting abuses committed by AFESIP for years.
AFP just released this piece a few days ago.
http://www.france24.com/en/20120522-controversial-activist-fights-seasian-sex-trade
Andrew Hunter
Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers
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The girls are kept in her facility for a period of time to avoid being arrested for prostitution. It is an arrrangement Somaly made with the local police during raids. Otherwise the raids would be ineffective if the girls were allowed to walk right back into the brothels without any attempted interventions. Everyone knows the pimps get off without any charges.
The effort is to focus on rehabilitating the girls rather than punishing them. If Somaly did not provide support for rehabilitation, these girls who suffered unimaginable indignities would easily return to a life they were all too familiar with.
Also, in my opinion of the way she handled her daughters abduction, it is likely she struggled with preserving her daughters privacy while also trying to expose the lengths the brothels would go to in order to hurt her, and capitalize on the sex trade.
Somaly is not perfect, she’s a human being. But at least she has the courage to stand in the trenches and fight this battle.
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Well there’s the Christian group that locked up several dozen bar girls on a boat while they were preached to. The Australian sex predator that solicited donations to buy food to distribute down at the rubbbish dump. The Australian group rescuing girls up in Chiang Rai. Too many of these groups trading on sob stories overstep the line – the founder of the Saigon Children Charity should have deserved some closer attention – he got an MBE so it could have made a nice payday for the likes of Andrew Drummond.
Naive foreigners go to Cambodia just determined to find suffering – and there are large numbers hanging around who will gladly facilitate their quest. Then there are those who don’t even step foot outside their closeted communities in the West who will sign over much larger sums.
Oh Sabai sabai: Nicholas Krisroff isn’t a celebrity as such – he’s been writing over-the-top, factually and ethically suspect exposes on the sex scene in Cambodia for ten years now. And did Jolie drop Cambodia like a hot potato? has she even been back to the place?
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Sorry for the previous overcooked criticism/abuse – I had previously been reading the seemingly inescapable narrative about Craig Thomson and became alarmed that New Mandala may be lurching down the same path of journalistic abomination –which this article is, of course, not.
One perhaps more constructive thing I can say though is that it’s important for human trafficking and the sex trade to remain ‘trendy causes’ to raise people’s ire. Would the tragedy of these issues be less in the public domain if Somaly had not lied? I’m not sure because I’m not sure if the celebrities’ support of her stemmed from reasons cooked by her lies. So yes it’s important to know that lies are often part of the mix with Somaly, but it’s also important to remember that she is a victim of the sex trade, and that perhaps these lies, and allegations of abuse against other women suggest she continues to be a victim of it in a messy vicious cycle.
The trauma inflicted upon victims of human trafficking and the sex trade will continue to manifest itself throughout their lives, and the burden of expectation about running a shining-light NGO that’s meant to help ease such trauma is perhaps too much responsibility for a victim clearly in the midst of her own personal psychological battles to bear. The expectation of the previous commentators, who are presumably not victims of such trauma, suggests to me a very hard-line approach is being taken with her which under appreciates the insanity of her situation. Despite the lies, it is admirable that she tried and tries.
Thanks for highlighting it, Geoff.
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Trafficking of Southeast Asian children as sex slaves has been going on for decades (probably millenia). My father was involved in moving child pornography and children out of Viet Nam for this very purpose. He was above suspicion or investigation because of his high military position. I cannot comment on Somaly Mam’s veracity or motives. I can encourage people to take her cause seriously. Wealthy people want to be able to make a donation and have the problem be solved. Abuse of women and children has multiple causes, among them endemic poverty and lack of education. These two problems alone will take generations to overcome. Large amounts of regular and consistent cash inflow are required for the organizations that are working to address these issues to be able to optimally function. In many ways, it seems like a bottomless eternally money-sucking pit, but the social and cultural attitudes, socioeconomic inequities, and pervasive ignorance that support abuse are well rooted. Go see for yourselves what these people live like. Go smell it, go eat like it, dress like it, sleep like it. Hopefully you will begin to understand the need for and the importance of ongoing deep pocketed giving.
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Not all NGOs working against the issue of human trafficking in Cambodia are bad in the way that just trying to exaggerate the scale of what is happening for the purpose of getting the funding. A lot of social issues in Cambodia including poverty, low awareness and education, corruption, and the political instability resulting in the exploitation and abuse happen to those those women, children, and men and the community that can not protect themselves.
Without the effort of some NGOs and international support the problem could be worst. However, donors and volunteers should be aware of the situation and transparency of the organisation before they wish to support direct financial contribution or publicise the work of the work of the organisation. Inability to provide good quality care for the victims of trafficking or abuse can cause a lot of harm of adding the distress and re-traumatisation.
Some organisations are very well known at international community and get good recognition of doing good work for the victims of trafficking in Cambodia. But the quality of care and the commitment to work collaboratively with others are absolutely poor.
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I have lived in and traveled through Thailand for years. I came here with the impressions the NGOs had left me through their typical advertisements depicting the evil foreigner exploiting children and luring them off to dark dingy rooms to be sexually ravaged. I can tell you that foreign men are so high profile in this part of the world that the opportunities for any who are predisposed to that kind of perverted activity would have little chance of doing so without raising more than just eyebrows.
However, what I did see when I explored the small villages in my travels through Thailand was brothel-bars tucked far away from where the vast majority of foreigners would ever see them, and the age of the girls lounging seductively outside the small dimly lit and squalor bars was shockingly young. Occasionally, when I would pass by these bars on foot, allowing me enough time to see these child prostitutes, their reaction was not one of attempts to lure me into the bar, but instead it was one of great surprise that a foreigner is even in the village. Most would shyly scramble back into the bar and clearly had never had an encounter with a foreign man. The ones who were a bit braver and remained sitting outside the bar would look in silent and nervous curiosity, and I’m sure that if I had attempted to talk to them, their bravery would have quickly evaporated and they would have joined the other girls who fled at first sight of something so unusual as a foreign man walking down their street.
The NGOs who have positioned themselves to combat sexual exploitation (in SE Asia) do not not stand a chance of defeating the true enemy — cultural traditions that have been ingrained in the rural setting of Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, etc. for ages, and they will not be changed by a foreigner’s objections or efforts. I’m convinced that ninety-nine percent of the sexual encounters involving underage people in this part of the world are contained to the indigenous population, and until the majority of citizens in those cultures decide that there’s something wrong that must be changed, it isn’t going to happen.
Many NGO’s are justifiably looked at with suspicion these days, and this latest revelation will do them no favor. I think more and more people will see them as “good causes” implemented by uninformed and generally over-pampered rich folks who need to do something for their own mental comfort (through a feeling that instead of only living a shallow and spoiled existence, they are actually making a difference). Or even worse, they will see them as false fronts for something more menacing.
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Three of us ladies went to Phnom Penh with the intention of giving financial support to SMF. We met with one of their representatives in a building that looked like the Taj Mahal. It was empty except for some office furniture. The rep who was from Australia had nothing good to say about the Cambodian people which we did not like and sent up red flags about this foundation. We asked how many young woman they are helping and she said 200. Wow, just 200 when they received so much money and other NGO’s we were meeting with helped hundreds more with a fraction of the money. We left with a bad feeling and decided not to give to this organization. We met with a lovely young woman who was saved from the sex slave industry. I left her a few dollars but wondered if she even got it. Sometimes you need to trust your gut feelings. I’m sure this started out with the right intentions but money and fame changed that.
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This is a global issue, sex slave around Asia.If Somaly does something to stop this from happening, who wants her to be there?
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Human rights and UN investigated and said that she was lying. I wouldn’t believe them either. We have the priminister’s wife works for The Red-cross, who will be working for UN and Human rights? Look at the Cambodia now? This lady has many enemies across Asia. Most foreigners don’t know what Cambodian government is capable of?? This lady has a choice, either to remarried with another foreigner, then be a housewife or save the sex slaves. Overall I think, she employed the wrong person in her organization, that is why thing went wrong. Now who will save those victims?? I guess, there will be no one, apart from her.
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