Somaly Mam's autobiography is a global best-seller but she gets no pleasure from her story, she tells it because she has to. Somaly Mam (pictured) escaped from being sold into sex-trafficking in Cambodia, and now campaigns to save women like herself. This week she's visiting Australia.
Presenter: Matt Abud
Speakers: Somaly Mam, Author The Road of Lost Innocence and founder, Somaly Mam Foundation; Tanya Plibersek, Australian Minister for the Status of Women; Stephanie Lorenzo, Founder, Futures Project
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ABUD: Somaly Mam's parents disappeared in the violence of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime. She grew up in the forest, and when only nine years old she was sold into sex trafficking by a man she called 'Grandfather'.
It's a story that's all too common. Some estimates say that one in every forty Cambodian women are sold into prostitution. Many of them are under ten years old.
Somaly Mam is anything but usual. After years in the sex trade she managed to flee. In the face of violence in the brothel where she worked, escape was an act of desperation. She didn't expect to survive - and that's when she started to tape-record her story, just in case.
SOMALY MAM: I never make a decision to write a book and write a story because that is hard story. So I say that I'm dying so I take a tape and then I recorded three days. And then I send it to France and I tell them if I'm die they have to publishing because I want to let the people know what is the victim life mean everyday in the brothel
ABUD: Her book, The Road of Lost Innocence, is a simple and powerful account that has won high praise. She says she never expected to write it - and hasn't even read a page since, because it's so painful. But she realised other people needed to hear the story.
Contacts in France helped her escape there. But eventually she decided to return to Cambodia, and help girls and women like herself. She established the Somaly Mam Foundation. Now she runs three shelters which have supported thousands of former sex workers escaping the trade, and trained them for other employment.
It's not easy. Outreach teams meet the sex workers through safe-sex campaigns and services. If they get information about girls being sold, they contact the police for action.
The conditions the women and girls face in brothels are tough and dangerous - and sometimes fatal, because of either physical abuse or HIV-AIDS.
SOMALY MAM: First of all you know they are quite young, they have been raped and then beaten and hitting by the pimps. Some of them they have been killed and die in the brothel They can be HIV-AIDS, traumatised that is kill the girls.
ABUD: There's a lot of money in sex trafficking, and a lot of corrupt interests - and Somaly Mam has had her fair share of threats to burn her house or kidnap her child, for trying to create change.
She's visiting Australia this week to promote awareness of sex trafficking. The itinerary included meeting the Federal Minister on the Status of Women Tanya Plibersek.
PLIBERSEK: I think it's incredibly important for Australians to hear about Somaly's experiences. It's also very important for Australian tourists who are thinking about engaging in sex tourism to hear about the abuse and exploitation, to understand that this is not something that you can engage in carefree when you're on holidays and there are no consequences.
ABUD: Ms. Plibersek says recent legislation makes it easier to protect victims of sex trafficking in Australia - and to prosecute Australians who commit offences overseas.
Somaly Mam is hosted by Project Futures - a new organisation that raises funds for her shelters in Cambodia.
Stephanie Lorenzo founded Project Futures after visiting the shelters .
LORENZO: Once you meet the survivors they're so young, I'm twenty-four years old, a lot of these girls have been sold at twelve or thirteen and some even seven. So you look at these girls, you just see that their soul and their spirit how it's been lifted by being in the centre and lifted by Somaly being their mother and someone actually giving them love. You know it's something that you can't turn your back on.
ABUD: Project Futures is taking 27 cyclists from Australia and the United States to Cambodia, as part of an annual fundraising effort, which has already reached one hundred thousand dollars this year.
Ms. Lorenzo says her organisation aims to get young people involved as early as possible in combating sex trafficking.
And Somaly Mam is very clear on the messages she wants to tell Australia's youth - to value your own good fortune, and fight to help others.
SOMALY MAM:I want to tell them that, 'how lucky you are to be born in Australia, take the mother around you, take the love around you'. So I just want to tell them that participating to stand up and fight again, because the traffic is happen around the world.
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