Renee C. Byer / rbyer@sacbee.com
Teav Mam gets in some quality time with her dog Puka and fiancé Kenny Demarest last month after Demarest brought Mam a salad at her shop.
Renée C. Byer rbyer@sacbee.com
Teav Mam styles the hair of Carly Wagner, 16, at her shop in Folsom last
month. Mam, 34, is partnering with XXXXX xxxxxThe Trade, an El Dorado
Hills nonprofit, to open a beauty school in her native Cambodia to train
girls rescued from sex trafficking.
The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Jul. 8, 2012
After overcoming a childhood scarred by the Khmer Rouge
and abusive relationships, Teav Mam found new purpose and identity
through the beauty trade. She says hairstyling saved her life. Now she
wants to save others.
Mam, a Folsom hairstylist, mentors five
girls who were brought from Cambodia by members of a Roseville-based
missionary group, Agape International Missions, after being rescued from
sexual slavery. Mam, 34, plans to return to her native Cambodia this
fall in hopes of opening a beauty school there for other girls rescued
from sex-trafficking.
"Little girls as young as 5 years old are being sold every day by their parents," Mam said. "It just breaks my heart."
Mam is partnering with The Trade, a nonprofit based in El Dorado Hills that aims to empower impoverished women in developing countries by instructing them in the art of hair and makeup and helping them set up their own businesses.
The
Trade was created by Chris McCarley and Jonathan Klein, two men from
Redding who in 2009 maxed out their moms' credit cards to launch a
scissors manufacturing company, Hattori Hanzo Shears. Through Hattori,
the pair sell high-end hairdressing shears, then funnel a portion of
their profits into charitable work through The Trade.
The company,
which expects to do more than $3 million in sales this year, puts
$50,000 annually back into The Trade, McCarley said.
Their
customers trade in used shears, which are sharpened and given to
hairstylists, along with blow dryers and stipends, to train girls in
Nicaragua, Mexico, Brazil and Kenya, McCarley said. Many of the girls
they help are rescued from sex-trafficking.
"When we met Mam at a
Starbucks in Granite Bay, it was an instant connection," McCarley said.
"Teav has a heart for Cambodians. We're supporting her with all the
tools, and we're working hard to help her raise the funds."
Mam said she was deeply touched by the stories of the five Cambodian girls she mentors, who range in age from 16 to 19.
The
girls were flown to California to testify against Michael Pepe, a
retired U.S. Marine captain who had worked as a teacher in Phnom Penh,
Cambodia. According to testimony at his Los Angeles trial, he hired a
prostitute to buy the girls from their families, then repeatedly and
violently raped them. He was convicted in May 2008 of sexually abusing
seven girls and still awaits sentencing.
Mam's mentees were
rescued by a joint task force that included the International Justice
Mission, the Cambodian anti-trafficking police, the FBI and U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Renee Burkhalter, who retired from Agape International Missions in January.
Agape
was founded by the Rev. Don Brewster and his wife, Bridget, of
Roseville, who moved to Cambodia in 2005 to battle the rampant
sex-trafficking of children. The Brewsters put the girls in Agape's
after-care program in Cambodia, got them therapy and medical treatment,
and helped them come to the United States on visas for sex-trafficking
victims, Burkhalter said.
The girls live with host families in
the Sacramento area, and Mam serves as mother, driver, confidante and
advice counselor, helping them adjust to American life. She is one of
the few Cambodians the girls have met since they started school in Placer County in 2010.
"They call me Bong, 'Big Sister,' " said Mam.
She cooks for them and packs them into her SUV for swimming parties at Folsom Lake, shopping adventures at thrift stores, and farmers markets in Stockton.
"One
wants to become a stewardess, and we're going to give another girl a
scholarship to beauty school. She's a natural with hair," said Mam.
Mam
had her own difficult journey to America. She was born in Cambodia
during one of history's worst genocides. The Khmer Rouge, soldiers who
became communist revolutionaries, killed 3 million of their own people
in the 1970s.
The "suspected capitalists" executed included ethnic
Vietnamese, Chinese and other minorities, as well as Catholics, Muslims
and Buddhist monks; artists and musicians; professionals, teachers and
anyone who wore glasses.
Mam's father, an engineer, was forced to
become a soldier. Her mother was nearly executed because somebody said
she had an Omega watch, Mam said.
"I was 2 when my family escaped," she said. For three days they hiked through a jungle littered with land mines.
They
spent five years in Thai and Indonesian refugee camps before coming to
the United States in 1982. The next year, they joined the growing
Cambodian community in Stockton.
When Mam was 13, she said, she
was molested by a family friend, and ran away from home, only to wind up
in an abusive relationship. She ran with gangs, then gradually rebuilt
her life, getting her GED.
Mam said she got the idea to cut hair
from her older sister, who found her own path to financial and emotional
independence when she started cutting hair for a living. Eventually,
Mam got a job in Folsom, and gave free haircuts at women's shelters.
At
a benefit concert for Courage To Be You, which runs a Sacramento
shelter for girls rescued from sex-trafficking, Mam met Clayton Butler, a
Sacramento missionary who worked in Cambodia. He asked if she would
like to be a big sister to a rescued girl.
Soon, she had five
little sisters. Though they'd had little schooling, each has embraced
her new American life, Mam said. They have Facebook accounts, text in
English and one has earned her orange belt in Taekwondo.
When
they're not in school, they love swimming, shopping and movies. "But not
kissing movies," Mam said. "They like action and adventure."
Mam
hopes to raise $10,000 to go to Cambodia to start the "Growing Hope"
beauty school. The plan is to train 20 girls at a time to cut hair.
Mam
knows what it's like to feel powerless. By opening a beauty school in
Cambodia, she said, she hopes to make other young women feel beautiful,
confident and independent, "so they can live and love freely."
And she doesn't plan to stop at Cambodia.
"That's what I want to do, bring joy to women all over the world," she said.
HOW TO HELP
On Sept. 16, Mam and other hairstylists will participate in The Trade's fundraiser, Cut for a Cause. To donate, go to supportthetrade.org. 
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