Anti-*** slavery activist in Denver tonight
By Bruce Finley
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 04/04/2008 06:28:15 PM MDT
Working as a teen-aged *** slave in a Cambodian brothel, Somaly Mam
says she served up to 30 clients a night. Some hit her. "I never
thought, just lived hour by hour. I played with nothing. In my head:
nothing. It was dark, dark, dark. I never trusted people," Mam said
Friday during a visit to Denver.
"I was dead."
She tried suicide, she said.
Her turning point: the day a brothel pimp fired a bullet through the
head of her friend, Srymom, who dared refuse customers - warning other
girls to obey. Mam said she then began trying to help a newcomer, a
girl with dark skin like her, and eventually used the brothel keys to
set her free.
Brothel owners soon released Mam, deeming her too old for Cambodia's
booming *** trade.
Ever since, Mam has been arranging rescues of child *** slaves - more
than 4,000 over the past decade. The group she formed - Acting for
Women in Distressing Situations - counsels and rehabilitates them at
shelters in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
Now Mam and two former U.S. Air Force Academy cadets - Nic Lumpp and
Jared Greenberg - are launching a private U.S. effort to fight the
multi-billion *** trade that governments and police have been unable
to kill.
Based in Denver, the Somaly Mam Foundation (www.somaly.org) has raised
$400,000 and aims to collect $1 million by July, thanks to cor****ate
and celebrity backers such as actress Susan Sarandon.
"We need the United States. Americans are more active," Mam said.
Cambodia's own efforts to combat the *** trade have been crippled by
corruption of police and courts.
A preview of the film "Holly" tonight at Denver's Starz film center -
continuing through next week - is designed to help publicize the
effort. A fund-raiser has been set for next week in New York. And
Mam's published account of her slavery - "The Road of Lost Innocence"
- is scheduled for release this fall.
After graduating from the Air Force Academy in 2005, Lumpp and
Greenberg resolved to do something about the global *** trade.
"It outraged us," said Lumpp, 25. "We couldn't just stand by and talk
about it. It's a blatant disregard for human life."
Greenberg now works as a management consultant in Los Angeles, and
Lumpp runs a Denver-based web business that helps parents teach
children financial skills.
They discovered Mam's work and sent her emails. She received these
with great skepticism, she said, and told the Americans to come to
Cambodia if they wanted to help.
They visited for 10 days last year.
Mam said she still doubted them, suspecting they were *** tourists or
pedophiles.
Meeting them at the air****t, "I looked at them thinking: They are
young. If they have commitment, that's good. I don't think they are
pedophiles."
She brought them to one of her 60-person shelters and watched them
carefully as they met recently-rescued girls. "I wanted to see their
attitude," Mam said.
Lumpp and Greenberg played games. They worked with interpreters to ask
girls and young women questions. Lumpp said they noticed those in
Mam's shelters aspired to become educated, whereas those in brothels
seemed listless.
Mam said she saw the two crying. "I said to myself: we can trust
them."
"My staff said: You trust them? I said: Yes. They said: Why? I said: I
just do. Normally I never trust men."
The foundation's approach is twofold: campaign to stop foreign ***
tourists and others from entering southeast Asia in the first place,
and fund continued rescues and rehab for girls and young women at
shelters in Cambodia and neighboring countries.
Today *** trade owners seek younger girls, as young as 4, said Mam,
who was sold from her village into slavery around age 12 after a
"grandfather" used her as a household servant.
Rehab is difficult, Mam said. One girl at her shelter, 7-year-old
Sokchea, seemed to recover well at first, starting school and
excelling. Then after three months she quit. "We cannot release the
pain inside her," Mam said. Another former slave, Srymuch, "has AIDs
and is going to die."
U.S. diplomats have visited the 60-person shelters, where girls
receive counseling, medical care, basic education, and training on
sewing machines.
Rescues are high-risk operations based on tips received at Mam's
shelters. Brothel owners have threatened to kill her, and thugs broke
up a shelter in December 2004 after a raid on a hotel.
U.S. officials quietly offered her protection, Mam said. But leaving
Cambodia is out of the question. "My heart is with these girls," she
said.
"If I didn't run these shelters, maybe I could not survive."
Bruce Finley: 303.954.1700 or bfinley@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
|
