Meet Somaly Mam

While on my way to Thailand, I read the book The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam, the founder of the Somaly Mam organization, which fights sex trafficking by rescuing, rehabilitating, and reintegrating victims of sexual exploitation.

Somaly Mam was abandoned by her birth parents as a baby. She was taken in by a Cambodian man and his wife, but was later sold to a “grandfather” who raped her and forced her into prostitution. At first, Somaly tried to resist and fight back, but soon realized that her efforts would only bring her more abuse and torture. One time she asked her “grandfather” why he had done this to her. “He said it was none of my business. It was like I had no right to ask him – and I felt that, too. I had no right to ask him or to protest. I belonged to him, and this was just the way things were.”

Somaly describes her horrific life as a sex slave, including being beaten, locked in a basement, tied naked to a bed, and having maggots dumped on her. The goal of the pimps is to break the women who are enslaved to them, take away their dignity, and so they have no hope of escape.  She writes, “Nobody wants you back after you’ve worked in a brothel. The word for prostitute in Cambodia is srey kouc, ‘broken woman’ – broken in a way that cannot be mended. You are forever ruined and your existence shames the family. Nobody wants people want people to know they have a prostitute in their family.”

Somaly tells about the young virgins in Cambodia, who are sold at a high price because Cambodians believe that sex with a virgin will prolong their lives and heal disease. They are raped for a week and then when they are brought back to their brothels, the girls are stitched back up, sometimes without anesthetic, and sold as virgins three or four times more.

When she got older, Somaly was bought by a foreigner, named Pierre, who was different. He worked for a nonprofit organization in Cambodia and spoke Khmer, the Cambodia language. Pierre treated her better and did not beat her. She began living with him, and eventually, he asked her to marry him. Though she did not “love” him, Somaly realized that she wanted this life. They moved back to France, where Pierre was from, and during this time, Somaly was able to find a cleaning job, and during this time, she gained dignity that she never had before.

Later, Pierre and Somaly decided to move back to Cambodia, and Pierre began working for a hospital. Somaly began volunteering at the hospital. She met many prostitutes and started giving them condoms and soap and providing them with basic health education. This led Somaly to paying for girls to escape from their brothels and learn how to sew as a means of another income. Later, Somaly began taking some of these girls into her home, and Somaly and her husband began a nonprofit organization to rescue and rehabilitate victims of sexual slavery.

I had many thoughts while reading this book.

First, after reading many stories and books like this, the problem still continues to feel so huge. There are millions of people in slavery around the world, and it doesn’t seem like it will ever be brought to an end. This story does show how one person can make a difference. Somaly wrote in this book, “I don’t feel like I can change the world. I don’t even try. I only want to change this small life that I see standing in front of me, which is suffering. I want to change this small real thing that is the destiny of one little girl. And then another, and another, because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself or sleep at night.” Somaly didn’t let what happened in her past to stop her from changing the world, one girl at a time. And according to Nicholas Kristof, her efforts have made a difference. In the foreword, he writes, “Because of her work and that of many others in Cambodia, some of the worst abuses have been curbed. The Svay Pak brothels no longer openly display young girls, and some pimps have gone to prison for selling virgins. You see fewer twelve – and thirteen-year-old girls in the brothels today; rather, there are sixteen-year-olds who claim to be eighteen,. Some brothels have closed because the owners find it’s not worth the risk of prosecution and the hassle of raids. It’s not a solution, but it is progress.”

While reading this book and hearing about how girls sit in the brothels and are labeled with numbers. Their names and dignity have been stripped from them, and they don’t have any hope of a better life. Some of my favorite verses from Isaiah 43 popped into my head. Verses 1 says, “But now, this is what the Lord says – he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel; ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” To God, these girls do have a name. They are his beautiful creation, and he hurts with their every hurt. In the book, a victim asked Somaly why a loving God would allow this to happen to her. I don’t know what I would tell that girl, but I do believe, that my God wants so badly to see his beautiful creation redeemed and restored to what it was intended to be. He is working to bring his kingdom here on earth, in part, and he has called us to be a part of seeing justice happen.

So what’s the answer? How do we put an end to human trafficking?

This is the mission of the Somaly Mam Foundation:

“The Somaly Mam Foundation has made it its mission to give victims and survivors of sexual trafficking a voice. We try to rescue them, to help them create and sustain lives of dignity. Our goal is to put an end to slavery, to help create a world where women and children are safe from sexual trafficking.

Somaly wrote this book to shed light on the stories of so many women and girls who have no voice. You can be a voice too by raising awareness about sex trafficking and encouraging the government to take a stand on this issue. Somaly writes, “For the moment, our opponents are winning the war., but we’ve won one battle at least. They’ve lost face and respect. We’ve investigated this traffic, exposed it for what it is, and made it shameful. We’ve shown that these people aren’t invincible, and I’m glad we’ve managed that.” You can also bring change by supporting organizations like Somaly Mam and the International Justice Mission, who are exposing this evil and combating it.

To end, I want to leave you with a quote from Somaly, “Love can mend even the deepest unseen wounds. Love can heal, love can console, love can strengthen and yes, love can make change.”

In the end, love wins.