Mam: It’s not easy to explain. Certainly in times of war, people have to be very careful what they say and to whom. You may think your situation is terrible, but if you complain about it, it could become worse. The notion of saving face by keeping quiet about adversity or “personal” matters is typical of many Southeast Asian cultures. It is deeply rooted in our psyche. In Cambodia the challenges are a combination of the war, poverty, poor education, gender discrimination, people sacrificing their lives for the family, and many other factors. Perhaps poverty is the most important one. Particularly in the countryside, many families are so poor they have nothing. They can give nothing to their children, and sometimes the little girls are the ones who are sold.
However, things are changing. In 2012 the Somaly Mam Foundation established awareness and advocacy programs targeting high school and university students. Today we are proud to have more than six thousand students in this network of young people saying “no more” to slavery and exploitation of women and girls. It’s quite inspiring. They are literally going door to door to educate people on the dangers of trafficking and unsafe migration.
This is huge, because Cambodia’s young people are the majority of the population: more than fifty percent of Cambodians are under the age of twenty-five years, and thirty-two percent are under fifteen. These young men and women who are enrolled in school will become the leaders of the next generation. If today’s young Cambodians want to end sex-trafficking, it will end. By encouraging student groups to take collective action in the anti-trafficking movement, SMF is supporting a new vision and new values: this generation will no longer tolerate a country where slavery exists. We hope to engage students in the United States, as well. What the U.S. does has a powerful influence on what developing countries like Cambodia do.
The MOON: You also describe the compliance of children; the willingness of daughters to do whatever an elder requests, including submitting to beatings, rape, and slavery. Is this changing? Is this part of your work: to teach children that they have the right to say no?
Mam: I hope one day soon people will change their mindset on the value and respect given to women and girls. Children have no obligation to sacrifice their lives for their families, and women are not a servant class. That’s why, through our Voices for Change survivor-advocacy programs, our survivor leaders conduct outreach visits to local communities, authorities, and law enforcement, to educate others on the dangers of trafficking, and change mentalities from the grassroots up. Change must begin and end with the people—they must own this shift and believe in it. We try to show them how.
In this we are very grateful to have the growing support of the international community. The launch of International Day of the Girl Child, the focus on women and children in the U.N.’s Millennial Development Goals, and this year’s release of the film Girl Rising have all helped people around the world recognize women’s rights as human rights.
The MOON: What helped you to find your voice—your willingness to challenge even the powerful kingpins of human trafficking? What are some of the specific obstacles you have faced in doing so?
Mam: I think there is something in me that has always been a fighter. Perhaps it was a result of growing up wild as a child. Once you think of yourself as free, it’s hard to submit to another’s authority—especially their right to abuse you. I often resisted, and for that I was often beaten. So what I am saying is that perhaps I was never a very compliant Cambodian. I wanted to please the people who were kind to me, but I have always been willing to resist the people who wished me harm.
Human trafficking is big business. It is the second-most profitable criminal activity in the world, behind drugs. It thrives with the complicity of corrupt law enforcement—police officers and judges who look the other way or even warn and protect human traffickers.
In the beginning, I participated in rescues where we would arrive to find the brothel had already been evacuated, its owners tipped off by the police. Things have improved on this front though, particularly since a national Anti-Trafficking Police Force unit was established. These officers are more thoroughly trained on trafficking than regular police and our role is to provide complaints and intelligence to the police, who then pursue the investigations. Today, AFESIP watches over the operation to ensure that women and girls are safe and to offer them support during these operations.
There have been so many challenges. I’ve had a gun held to my ribs and been warned to leave the country because the next time the shooter would pull the trigger. My adoptive parents’ home was burned to the ground as a warning to me. I’ve had people accuse me of lying, of misrepresenting the facts or my personal life experiences, of using others to advance my own agenda. These have all been obstacles, but perhaps the worst and most difficult obstacle is indifference to what is happening everyday to women and girls in Cambodia. People see a girl dirty and starving in the street, and they are repelled and disgusted; they turn away. This is the hardest obstacle to overcome—people’s unwillingness to care.
When I see a girl like this, I know it could be me. I know this girl has most likely done nothing to deserve her fate. She has been betrayed and abused by even the people who were supposed to love her. How can I turn away? I know what she has been through.
Even after all these years, sometimes when I sleep, my dreams are filled with nightmares of the horrors I have seen. Reliving these horrors makes me sometimes question my existence. Would it not be better to die and be free of them?
But then I think of the girls in the shelters, and of my own children, and I know that I am kept here by love. This love is what fuels me—the love I receive from the girls we serve, as well as from the people around the world who support our work.
The MOON: Tell us about the impact of HIV/AIDS on human trafficking.
Mam: HIV/AIDS has had a huge impact on human trafficking—not only because women and men involved in the sex industry are at much higher risk of exposure than the general public, but also because of a persistent myth that sex with a virgin can help to “cleanse” a man of this disease. As a result, brothels are continuously looking for younger and younger girls to sell as virgins to men. Even worse, in some cases, young girls are stitched up after being raped so that they can be sold as virgins repeatedly.
We’ve also seen a double-edged sword as a result of education about the transmission and contraction of HIV. To reduce the risk of exposure, there has been an increase in demand for young girls, especially virgins, who are believed to be disease-free.
This is another very painful story to tell. My life immediately changed the day I met a girl named Tom Dy. I found her in the road one afternoon. She was dirty, with her hair clumped with mud, and was painfully thin. Her head was bleeding because people had been throwing stones at her. She had welts on her skin from AIDS. She looked half dead. I thought she was about thirty years old. I asked the driver to stop and took her into the car.
The driver thought I was crazy. She had lice; she looked and smelled terrible. But we took her to the shelter and I cared for her myself. She reminded me of my past life inside the brothels, and the lives of thousands of other women and girls. Tom Dy had been a prostitute since the age of nine. When she became too sick to work—she had tuberculosis as well as AIDS—the pimps had turned her out on the street and thrown stones at her. With our care, however, she put on weight and became an inspiration to everyone in the shelter. She participated in our activities and inspired the younger girls when they got discouraged or depressed.
Years later, Tom Dy fell ill again and died. It was so hard. At first I raged and wept. Then I adopted her as my model of inspiration. Whenever I get tired, whenever I think I’ve had enough and I just want to walk away, I remember Tom Dy. I will do whatever I can to help girls like her out from the darkness and help them to build new lives with dignity.
The MOON: What about the men who frequent brothels? How can it be possible for men who consider themselves upstanding members of the community—policemen, businessmen, tourists, etc.—to rape pre-pubescent children? And for judges to look the other way? Is this capitalism at its very worst? Are people so corrupted by money that they care about nothing else?
Mam: I’ve mentioned a lot of possible reasons for the existence of human trafficking and exploitation of children. The destruction of a culture, oppressive gender norms, lack of education and opportunity, and rampant poverty are among them.
I will say though, that so long as human trafficking and sexual exploitation exist and are even common in some places, people will tend to look the other way, like it’s not their problem and that therefore it can’t be changed. But it isn’t right; it shouldn’t be condoned, explained, or allowed.
A recent study by the United Nations found that forty-nine percent of Cambodian men had participated in transactional sex, and over twenty percent had committed rape. More concerning still is that of those who admitted to rape, nearly sixteen percent did so for the first time when they were younger than fifteen years old, and fifty-two percent when they were younger than twenty.
Despite some of the longstanding views about the role of factors like alcoholism and pornography in driving non-consensual sex, this study found the primary motivation of these men to be simply a sense of sexual entitlement. Cambodian boys are being initiated to the world of transactional and non-consensual sex at a very young age, and are led to believe that this is their right as men. Constructing masculine identities that are not connected to force and sexual dominance is key to addressing the issue.
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