Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1970-71
• Where—Mondulkiri, Cambodia
• Awards—World Children's Prize for The Rights of the Child,
Sweden, 2008; CNN Hero, USA; Glamour Woman of the
Year, 2006; Olympic flag bearer, Torino, 2006; Heroes of
Anti-Trafficking Award, US State Department; Mimosa d'Oro
Award; Festival du Scoop Prize, France; Excmo
Ayuntaniento de Galdar Concejalia de Servicio Sociale, and
Principe de Asturias for International Cooperation, 1998—
both of Spain; Regis University Honorary Doctorate of
Public Service, USA.
• Currently—lives in France and Cambodia
Somaly Mam is the cofounder of AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Situations) in Cambodia and The Somaly Mam Foundation in the United States, whose goal is to save and socially reintegrate victims of sexual slavery in Southeast Asia. She was named Glamour's Woman of the Year in 2006. She lives in Cambodia and France. (From the publisher.)
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Mam, born into a Cambodian family struggling through poverty, was sold into sexual slavery as a child by her grandfather. She was beaten, raped and tortured. One night she witnessed the murder by a pimp of close friend and, at this moment, made it her mission to escape and find a way to halt the practice of child sex slavery. By the age of 30 Somaly Mam had become an international spokesperson for women and children tortured in the brothels of Southeast Asia.
In 1997, along with her former French husband, Pierre Legros, Mam created the AFESIP (Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Précaire—Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances) in Cambodia. Since then, her international foundation has worked in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. Its goals are to save and socially reintegrate people who are victims of the sex slave trade. Despite threats against her life, Somaly Mam has helped thousands of young girls and teenagers who had been coerced into prostitution.
Mam has attained international recognition for her work. In 1998 she received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Awards for International Cooperation, in the presence of Queen Sofia of Spain. In 2006 she was one of the eight Olympic flag bearers at the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Torino, Italy. In October 2006 she was named a Glamour magazine WOMAN OF THE YEAR at a presentation at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Her award was presented by Mariane Pearl, the journalist, who had been present in Cambodia at the time of the kidnapping of Somaly's daughter, and who reported on the incident for an article that subsequently appeared in the August 1, 2006 issue of Glamour:
The following day, a social worker calls me to say that Somaly has been reunited with her daughter. The police found Ning, who had apparently been drugged, in a bar in Battambang. She said she had been raped by her three captors—the young man who the family knows, along with two others.
When I see mother and daughter again, both are deeply shaken. “I think they kidnapped Ning in retaliation for my work,” Somaly tells me. I see that this is another defining moment in her life. She is deeply hurt. But pausing in her work is not an option. She must keep going—for the sake of all the girls she is helping. For the sake of her daughter. She tells me how earlier, she took Ning’s beautiful, sad face in both of her hands. “You’ve suffered what you’ve suffered,” she told her. “Now you take that pain and you help others. —Glamour
In June 2007 Somaly created the US based Somaly Mam Foundation, and in 2008, she was awarded the World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child in Sweden for her "dangerous struggle" to defend the rights of children in Cambodia. (From Wikipedia.)