Somaly Mam
| Somaly Mam | |
|---|---|
Mam in June 2013
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| Born | 1970 or 1971 Mondulkiri, Cambodia |
| Nationality | Cambodian |
| Occupation | Former CEO of Somaly Mam Foundation |
| Known for | Anti sex-trafficking |
| Spouse(s) | Pierre Legros (1993-2008) |
Somaly Mam (Khmer: ម៉ម សុម៉ាលី /mɑːm sɔmaliː/ also spelt ម៉ម សូម៉ាលី) (born 1970 or 1971) is a Cambodian anti-trafficking advocate who focuses primarily on sex trafficking. From 1996 to 2014, Mam was involved in campaigns against sex trafficking. She set up the Somaly Mam Foundation, raised money, appeared on major television programs and spoke at many international events.
After allegations of lying had appeared in The Cambodia Daily in 2012 and 2013, Newsweek ran a cover-story in May 2014 claiming that Mam had fabricated stories of abuse about herself and others. After the Somaly Mam Foundation undertook its own investigation by Goodwin Procter, a Boston-based law firm, she resigned from her position and later the foundation shut down in October 2014. She moved back to live in Cambodia, before returning to the US later that year to begin new fund-raising activities.
Mam was born to a tribal minority family in Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia. In her memoir, The Road of Lost Innocence, she states that she was born in either 1970 or 1971.
Mam was investigated by a journalist working in Cambodia, and his allegations that key parts of her early life were false was carried by Newsweek in May 2014. Mam resigned from the Somaly Mam Foundation shortly thereafter. An investigation by Marie Claire magazine came to a different conclusion, finding witnesses that supported Mam's story and contradicted Newsweek's allegations.
In her book Mam said she attended school in Cambodia, but did not graduate. According to the Newsweek article, Mam did graduate and found two students and a teacher to support their claims, but Marie Claire quotes the school director remembering she attended only three years of school.
Mam said that she was abused by her "grandfather" until she was approximately 14 and that she was sold to a brothel and forced into prostitution and that she was also forced to marry a stranger. She has claimed that she was forced to prostitute herself on the streets and made to have sex with five or six clients per day.
Mam left Cambodia for Paris, France, in 1993 where she married a French citizen, Pierre Legros. They divorced in 2008.
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