Tuesday night, The Somaly Mam Foundation and it’s founder, Somaly Mam, were honored along with Lauren Bush (a niece of former President George W. Bush) for their work to help end the multi-billion dollar human sex slave trade industry. Mam is a slave survivor who has turned her unthinkable experience into awareness and action. Speaking to the audience at New York City’s The Box nightclub, attended by a crowd of scenesters that included Amanda Brooks and Dylan and David Lauren (Bush’s beau), Mam said, “I was scared of my dreams.”
Mam’s dream started seven years ago when she envisioned the line of Somaly Mam empowerment scarves which launched yesterday and are made by rescued human slave survivors. Mam’s courage and passion are documented in her autobiography, The Road to Lost Innocence, in which she writes, “People ask me how I can bear to keep doing what I do. I’ll tell you. The evil that’s been done to me is what propels me on. Is there any other way to exorcise it?” As a cost to the work she does, Mam lives in constant threat of violence and death to her and her family. Yet, she perseveres and to date the foundation has rescued over 6,000 young women and girls and set up the largest shelters in Southeast Asia.
It is easy to see why Mam would be scared of her dreams. Growing up in extreme poverty in the Mondulkiri province of Cambodia, she was sold into sex slavery as a child by a man who posed as her father (to this day she doesn’t know the identity of that man). She was brutally raped and tortured on a daily basis until one day she escaped after seeing one her friends in the brothel be murdered. Since then, she set out to dedicate her life to saving victims and empowering survivors. In 1996, Somaly established a Cambodian non-government organization called AFESIP which uses a holistic approach to build emotional and economic strength to rescued survivors. Mam is sweet, gentle and soft spoken and talks of love as the driving force behind her work. It is also her determination and courage that have enabled her to fight a crime that people are very often too uncomfortable to acknowledge or address. It is not an easy task yet Mam has been recognized for her work wold over, including being named as one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2009.”
The facts about human sex trafficking are staggering and the reality of it is unimaginable to most: victims are as young 5 years old and both boys and girls. Over 2 million women and children are sold into slavery each year. It is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. Started in 2007, the Somaly Mam Foundation takes a three step approach: survival services, advocacy and awareness. The focus in all the foundation’s programs is to give a collective voice to the survivors who have been rescued and to never forget those who remain enslaved. The program is designed to give survivors the opportunity to help themselves by helping each other.
“Somaly is the real deal,” Lauren Bush said last night wearing the red empowerment scarf, “I am beyond humbled.” Inspired after reading Mam’s memoir, Bush found a way to collaborate with Mam and as she says, “help in a small way.” In 2008 Bush launched a fashion line called, Lauren Pierce Atelier, which was created with the intention to live up to high environmental and humanitarian standards. The company donates 10 percent of profits to a cause that effects women in the country, from which it has sourced that season’s materials.
The fashion line sources fabrics that are handmade by artisans from around the world and uses eco-friendly fabrics. For her fall 2009 collection, profits benefited the Somaly Mam Foundation and specifically empowering women by providing psychological support and sustainable job training. “I encourage everyone to read Somaly’s book and help in whatever way they can to make a difference,” she continued. At 25, and with the success of Feed Foundation (which she is co-founder of and in 2008 donated over $5 million dollars to the UN World Food Programme), Bush has already been named as one of Fortune Magazine’s “Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs.” “Lauren comes from a high family and I come from a poor Cambodia family. I always felt ugly and Lauren is so beautiful. But beautiful inside and outside.” said Mam.
These two powerful women from two very different worlds stood side by side in equal awe and inspiration of each other.
Photos by Billy Farrell/Patrick McMullan.