AF3IRM/GabNet Riverside member, Jennifer, honors Women Defender, Somaly Mam
Somaly Mam is the epitome of what a shero is. Having been sold into slavery by a man that pretended to be her grandfather, Mam has no recollection of her age, her parents or life before the brothel. While living in the brothel she experienced the horrors of rape and violence. She witnessed things that no human being should, including the vicious murder of her best friend. (1) However, she was able to escape the brothel with the aid of a French social worker.(2) Though many people that escape do not go back, Mam is even more admirable for returning to Cambodia to save girls from the fate that her best friend went through.
She created the nonprofit organization called AFESIP (Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire, translated it’s Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances) which effectively takes down brothels and councils the victims so that they can go back into the world. Many sex slaves, even after they leave the brothel, carry the emotional scars from the experiences, some are mentally ill and some even contract STDs.Mam’s organization has rescued about 3,000 girls and provides them with counseling in hopes of giving them a future.
Mam has faced and overcome great odds to become a model for change. She is threatened often by brothel owners and her daughter was even kidnapped, though was later returned. Despite all of this, Mam has continued living in Cambodia and giving girls new hope and love. For all of her relentless efforts to stop sex trafficking and her endless generosity, Somaly Mam is an exemplary shero.
1. http://www.somaly.org/whoweare/somaly/
2.http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1894289_1894268,00.html
