Somaly Mam

Somaly Mam with some of the girls she rescued. (http://tinyurl.com/cd6aymt)

Trafficking- term used to describe situations where one person obtains or holds another person in compelled service, a modern form of slavery. Trafficking can be generally defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons. This is done by means of threats, coercion, abduction, fraud, and deception. This is the definition of "trafficking" according to Somaly Mam's website. Sex slavery (or trafficking) is the third largest criminal industry in the world, yet it usually goes unnoticed. Over 1,000,000 women and children each year are said to be victims of sex slavery. At the moment in Cambodia there are approximately 2-3 thousand prostitutes and over 25% of them are children. Children as young as 4 or 5 years old are being forced into this business.

Somaly Mam has no records showing when she was born, who her parents are or what her real name is. She believes she was born sometime around 1970. When she was 11 she lived as an orphan in Cambodia. One day a man pretending to be her grandfather offered to help her find her parents. She accepted the offer for help because she was living on the streets of Cambodia. He sold her to a brothel soon after. In the brothel she was raped at least 6 times a day and she was beaten mercilessly if she resisted. After being forced to watch her best friend be viciously murdered she managed to escape the brothel.

In 1993 an aid worker from France found her and helped her escape from Cambodia. She moved to France and married a French citizen, but soon after moved back to Cambodia to help women with similar experiences to her own. For a long time she worked as a nurse by distributing information about safe sex and birth control to women in brothels. In 1996 She founded AFESIP (Acting for women in Distressing Situations). AFESIP is a foundation that tries to help women still enslaved by brothels.

In June 2007 Somaly Mam founded the Somaly Mam Foundation that helps young girls and women escape from brothels and helps to rehabilitate them. Not only is it a very heroic to be helping all these girls that have seen traumatizing childhoods but she puts her past and her own traumatizing memories aside and helps others. The fact that she came from such a cruel background also gives her "street credit" with all the girls. They truly feel like they can trust her and let her help them with their issues. She also helps give these girls tools to help them get jobs and gives them opportunities to talk to people in various communities about safe sex and how they shouldn't support brothels. Somaly on many occasions has even personally infiltrated and shut down multiple brothels.

Before you decide who's a hero and who isn't you have to decide what a true hero is. Is a hero someone who is selfless and cares for others more than themselves? Is a hero only a hero if they have saved a life? I think to be a hero all you have to do is make a positive impact on one person's life, regardless of personal cost, whether it be starting a conversation with someone who looks lonely or saving someone's life. It's sometimes the littlest things in life that make the greatest impact. It's going the extra mile and challenging yourself to coming up with as many ways as possible to make a positive impact on people's lives.

By March 2008 Somaly had saved over 4,000 girls from various communities and countries. She has won countless awards for her efforts and has released a bibliography called The Road Of Lost Innocence. I believe Somaly Mam is a true hero.