Somaly Mam resigns from foundation after probe into her personal history

[geovalin]

NEW YORK—Somaly Mam, one of the world’s best-known activists against sex trafficking, resigned Wednesday from the foundation she created after an investigation uncovered discrepancies in the shocking personal history she used to raise millions of dollars in funding around the world.

Gina Reiss-Wilchins, executive director of the seven-year-old Somaly Mam Foundation, which works primarily in Mam’s home country of Cambodia, issued a statement saying that Mam’s resignation came after an extensive two month investigation by the law firm Goodwin Procter LLP.

The statement didn’t provide details on the investigation’s findings but the law firm probed allegations of falsehoods in Mam’s autobiography, including assertions that she had been sold into sexual slavery at an early age and spent years in a brothel before escaping a life of prostitution.

Reiss-Wilchins said the foundation also was severing all ties with a woman named Somana, also known as Long Pros, an alleged victim of sex trafficking who claimed to have been rescued by Mam and then joined her in her work. The law firm’s investigation raised questions about the veracity of Pros’ personal story—which she told on Oprah Winfrey’s popular television talk show and in the PBS documentary “Half the Sky”--that she had been kidnapped, sold to a brothel, tortured, forced to undergo abortions and had an eye gouged out by an abusive pimp before being saved by Mam.

The developments at the Somaly Mam Foundation came a week after a May 21 cover story in Newsweek titled “Somaly Mam: The Holy Saint (and Sinner) of Sex Trafficking.” The subtitle was “Sex, Slavery & A Slippery Truth.”

Written by Simon Marks, a journalist who had been raising questions about Mam since 2012, the story provides a damning litany of falsehoods allegedly perpetrated by Mam and some of the women she claims to have rescued.

Although sometimes the dates varied in the telling, the core narrative of Mam’s heartbreaking story, often delivered in public and contained in her 2005 autobiography “The Road of Lost Innocence,” is simple.

Mam, who believes she was born around 1970, claims that an abusive man she calls “Grandfather” found her as an orphan and turned her into a domestic slave around the time she was 9 years old. According to the Newsweek story, “He eventually sold her as a virgin to a Chinese merchant and then forced her to marry a violent soldier when she was just 14. She was later sold to a brothel in Phnom Penh, where she recalls being tortured with electrodes hooked up to a car battery.”

Mam has said she stayed in the brothel for up to a decade before she met a French biologist named Pierre Legros in 1991 and left her life of prostitution. She and Legros married and relocated to France before returning to Cambodia in 1994.

In 1996, Mam, Legros and a friend founded Agir Pour Les Femmes en Situation Précaire (AFESIP), which translates into Helping Women in Danger, an NGO devoted to fighting sex trafficking and caring for its victims.

After a France 2 documentary in 1998, Mam became a global celebrity and the recipient of numerous awards for the work her organization did. In her statement, Reiss-Wilchins expressed the disappointment of the foundation over the current situation but noted, “We have touched the lives of over 100,000 women and girls. We have treated nearly 6,000 individuals at a free medical clinic in Phnom Penh’s red light district and engaged nearly 6,400 students in anti-trafficking activism.”

Much of the organization’s success stemmed from Mam’s charismatic presence and the lurid story she told of a childhood destroyed by sex trafficking.

However, the Newsweek article raises several questions about that story, questions the legal investigation apparently also uncovered.

For example, Mam claimed she was an orphan taken away by “Grandfather” and sold into sexual slavery and that she spent up to 10 years in a Phnom Penh brothel. But, according to Newsweek interviews with childhood friends, teachers, neighbors and local officials in the village of Thloc Chhroy, where she grew up, the timeline doesn’t add up.

A former commune chief in the village said he remembers the day that Mam arrived there as a child in the company of both her parents.

No one, not even a cousin of Mam’s mother, recalls ever seeing “Grandfather.”

A childhood friend, the former director of the local high school, the current commune chief and his two predecessors all recall Mam attending village elementary and high schools between 1981 and 1987, when she would have been 11 to 17-years-old.

Mam herself has delivered various accounts of when she was sold into sexual slavery, Newsweek reported. Speaking at the White House in 2012, she said she was sold into slavery at the age of 9 or 10 and spent 10 years in the brothel. On “The Tyra Banks Show” she said she spent four or five years in the brothel and her published autobiography says she was trafficked when she was about 16 years old.

There are other discrepancies. In 2012, Newsweek said, Mam admitted lying in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which she claimed eight girls she had rescued from sex traffickers were killed in 2004 by the Cambodian army after a raid on her shelter for victims.

Rights workers and police officials, including the former head of the government’s anti-human trafficking department, have denied claims by Mam that traffickers kidnapped her 14-year-old daughter in 2006 in retaliation for Mam’s work and videotaped the girl being gang-raped. Mam’s ex-husband Pierre Legros and Aarti Kapoor, a former legal adviser to AFESIP, both say the girl was not kidnapped but ran away with her boyfriend.

As for Long Pros, also known as Somana and profiled by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in 2009, Newsweek found she had never been a victim of sex trafficking. Her family and medical records also show that her eye was not gouged out by an angry pimp but operated on by a surgeon for removal of a non-malignant tumor when she was 13.

Pros came to AFESIP not as a sex trafficking survivor but after the then-director of Cambodia’s Takeo Eye Hospital asked if the organization would admit Pros to one of its vocational programmes.

In her statement, Reiss-Wilchins said that although the foundation will remove Pros from any official affiliation with the organization, it “will help her to transition into the next phase of her life.”

Somaly Mam declined to be interviewed for the Newsweek article and issued no statement on Wednesday.

http://www.trust.org/item/20140528212842-43u8o/

[Bernard Flint]

Corruption and scandal all over the world

Thaksin

Suthep

and everybody in power

[geovalin]

The Cambodia Daily ‏@cambodiadaily

Coverage of Somaly Mam's resignation and The Daily's investigative stories into her organization are FREE today to all readers.

Phnom Penh Post does not mention the story. Why?

A lot of western journalists twitt a lot about it. All of them knew the lies since years. A lot of newspapers mentioned that since long years.

[Sheryl]

A post with profanity and slurs against the entire NGO sector has been removed. Please review forum rules, this is ThaiVisa, not certain other forums...

[geovalin]

Phnom Penh Post finally mentions the story

Somaly Mam resigns amid claims of dishonesty

Fri, 30 May 2014

Daniel Pye and Amelia Woodside

Following years of allegations that she fabricated details about her own back story as well as those of supposed sexual assault victims, Somaly Mam, Cambodia’s most famous anti-sex-trafficking activist, has resigned from the global fundraising organisation that bears her name.

The high-profile resignation, announced yesterday by Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) executive director Gina Reiss-Wilchins, sent shockwaves through the cluster of anti-trafficking organisations in Cambodia, and came just days after Newsweek published a damning indictment of her life’s work.

“We have accepted Somaly’s resignation effective immediately,” Reiss-Wilchins says in the statement. She adds that the decision was made after a two-month probe commissioned by the organisation. It does not mention the Newsweek article or previous media coverage about Mam that first raised questions about her past.

The foundation hired law firm Goodwin Proctor LLP in March to conduct the investigation into the claims against Mam and alleged trafficking victim Long Pros, whom the organisation had used in media campaigns to attract support and funding. Pros’s story turned out to be a cobbled-together version of other peoples’ experiences.

“While we are extremely saddened by this news, we remain grateful to Somaly’s work over the past two decades and for helping to build a foundation that has served thousands of women and girls,” the statement reads. It adds that the foundation will continue to work with its local affiliate, Agir Pour Les Femmes en Situation Precaire (Afesip), which Mam founded in 1996.

The foundation said Pros – whose harrowing story of being sold to a brothel where she was abused and tortured was brought under the media spotlight by New York Times columnist Nick Kristof and an appearance on Oprah – would also be leaving.

“We are permanently removing Ms Pros from any affiliation with the organisation or our grant partner, but will help her to transition into the next phase of her life,” it said.

Simon Marks’s Newsweek report built on a series of stories he did while working at the Cambodia Daily newspaper.

Mam is also alleged to have fabricated and scripted the testimony of another woman, Meas Ratha, for a French documentary in 1998, which propelled her into the media spotlight and began her journey to celebrity status in the global fight to end sex trafficking.

Moreover, Mam backtracked on a statement she made in 2012 to the UN General Assembly, where she claimed that Cambodian soldiers had killed eight girls in a raid on one of her shelters in Phnom Penh in 2004.

As the SMF grew in prominence, it attracted the backing of Hollywood stars and venture capitalists, public-relations gurus and politicians, which in turn added to its fundraising power.

Anti-trafficking and women’s rights groups in Cambodia yesterday responded to the news of Mam’s resignation with concern.

“I’m quite disappointed in Somaly; it’s already difficult to hear that a woman working on this issue is lying to other women … but what’s even worse is that this culture of victimhood that so many use when talking about survivors of trafficking will only be made worse,” said Ros Sopheap, executive director of rights group Gender and Development for Cambodia.

“I recognise that many women and children have been supported by this organisation but why did she fabricate these lies? These women and girls don’t need more lies in their lives.

“The worst situation would be if donors back out and the women and girls being supported are left behind.”

The SMF did not respond to requests for comment.

Others rallied behind Mam and the work of Afesip and the SMF.

Helen Sworn, founder of NGO Chab Dai, said that the situation was “difficult” but she hoped that “the good work the organisation was doing continued”.

“Somaly’s story needs to be separated from the work carried out by the organisation. I commend her decision to step down,” she said, adding that the group “does incredibly important work that should be at the centre of conversations now”.

Thomas Steinfatt, a professor of statistics at the University of Miami who conducted studies on trafficking figures for the UN’s Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, said that “the lies Somaly tells in her backstory are likely just the tip of the iceberg”.

Steinfatt estimated in 2008 that there were no more than 1,058 trafficking victims in the country, a figure that fell far short of figures quoted in SMF and Afesip promotional material and funding requests.

Annette Lyth, regional manager for the UN Action for Cooperation Against Trafficking in Persons, said that it was “highly unfortunate” that Mam had fabricated some of the stories.

“[Trafficking victims’] realities and their needs have not changed because of this story and we pledge our support to continue supporting victims of trafficking, as do the donors we are sure,” she said.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/somaly-mam-resigns-amid-claims-dishonesty

[Sheryl]

Actually there have been murmurings about her within the expat/aid community for well over a year now. Mayebv a few years, don't remember when I first heard it but it is not new. Just finally came to a head.

[khwaibah]

Anti-sex slavery hero in Cambodia resigns after Newsweek exposé

By Michael Martinez, CNN

May 31, 2014 -- Updated 0312 GMT (1112 HKT)

Did Somaly Mam fabricate her story?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Somaly Mam drew international attention for her personal tale of surviving sex slavery
• She used that narrative to begin a foundation and collect money to save girls
• But Newsweek reports this month that her personal story is untrue
• Mam resigned from the foundation this week

(CNN) -- She was the world's crusader against the trafficking of girls for sex in Cambodia, and she told an extraordinary personal tale: she was a village girl sold by a grandfatherly man into sex slavery.

Triumphant as well as beautiful, Somaly Mam won attention from Oprah Winfrey, a New York Times columnist, a PBS documentary, Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2009, and even CNN, which named her a "Hero" in 2007.

The fame -- and her memoir "The Road of Lost Innocence" -- generated millions of dollars for her Somaly Mam Foundation, fighting sex traffickers.

But her personal story wasn't true, according to a Newsweek exposé this month

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/30/world/asia/cambodia-sex-slavery-foundation-hero-resign/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

[edwardandtubs]

The media thirst for stories about sex slaves being 'rescued' does nothing at all to help countries like Cambodia. Supposedly the World Cup in Germany was going to lead to a huge increase in sex slaves, but in spite of much searching not a single case of forced prostitution was identified. Now it's Brazil turn for the sex slave hysteria. A whole industry of bogus, self-serving 'charities' has developed and all they're doing is holding back the people they claim to help.

Edited May 31, 2014 by edwardandtubs

[Sheryl]

Two similiar topics merged

[mesquite]

This is so sad. I really respected and admired her. Now it makes me wonder if any of these other anti sex trafficking stories are false. Sometimes I get the idea the whole thing is just a money making scam.

[cgphuket]

Yet to see a Cambodian NGO (not the local, but international run) that was not a scam, a gravy train for the director, or a "good ol boy" club staffed by all their golfing buddies.

[Sheryl]

Yet to see a Cambodian NGO (not the local, but international run) that was not a scam, a gravy train for the director, or a "good ol boy" club staffed by all their golfing buddies.

You must be joking. Or else you have had very, very little contact with the hundreds of NGOs working across all sectors in Cambodia.

I have "seen" scores of NGOs in Cambodia up close. Not a one of them conforms to any of what you describe.

[edwardandtubs]

Yet to see a Cambodian NGO (not the local, but international run) that was not a scam, a gravy train for the director, or a "good ol boy" club staffed by all their golfing buddies.

You must be joking. Or else you have had very, very little contact with the hundreds of NGOs working across all sectors in Cambodia.

I have "seen" scores of NGOs in Cambodia up close. Not a one of them conforms to any of what you describe.

How would you judge just by 'seeing' them? You'd really need to see their salary/earnings to judge.

[Sheryl]

What do salaries have to do with it? And what do you mean by "earnings" in an NGO context?

The issue is, their work, the quality of it and its impact.

Which I for one have seen, in detail. In fact I have conducted formal external evaluations of quite a few NGO programs in Cambodia. Some really excellent ones, some not so good, but never come across anything of the "scam" or "gravy train" variety in an international NGO. A few locals ones, yes, but they didn't last very long. And there are plenty of solid good local NGOs.

NGOs have to compete for their funding and donors are not stupid. Those who do not deliver -- for whatever reason -- don't last, in my experience.

[edwardandtubs]

Here's an example of the impact NGOs have. They put images all over Cambodia of a white man who is obviously about to sexually abuse a Cambodian child. As child abuse in Cambodia overwhelmingly involves Cambodian men, the campaign does nothing to stop the problem. In fact it makes it worse by allowing them to sweep the real problem under the carpet. Meanwhile the images damage Cambodia's tourism industry by making locals suspicious of westerners and making tourists feel uncomfortable. But not to worry, Cambodia's reliance on charity continues and the big fat salaries of the NGO staff keep coming in. That's what I would call a gravy train.

[Sheryl]

Very few of the hundreds of NGOs in Cambodia even work in that sector let alone post such things.