And it put me into real depressed.
She doesn’t have a marvellous writing skill; nevertheless, it is simple and straightforward (And for a woman who never has a proper education like her, it is really praiseworthy.) Every word is conveyed from her feelings. And it touches my heart tremendously.
In Cambodia, girls as young as five years old are sold into prostitution every day. Somaly Mam fell into a similar fate. As an abandoned baby, she was looked after by her grandmother until she disappeared. She was then taken into the care of a man she called “grandfather”, but was treated no better than an unpaid servant. Raped at twelve and forced to marry at fifteen, Somaly was then sold to a brothel. After years of abuse she managed to escape.
In 1997, Somaly Mam co-founded AFESIP to combat trafficking in women and children for sexual slavery.
In 1998, she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize.
In 2006, she was the winner of Woman of the Year from Glamour magazine.
“I share everything they’ve been through. It’s as if we are the same person. I wear their scars on my body and in my soul. We don’t need to say much to understand one another.”
“If I had been there, if I had had a gun on me, I don’t know what I might have done. I felt real violence. There is no law, no police, no justice to protect little worms like us. We have laws in Cambodia, but everyone ignores them. Instead, what prevails is the law of money. With money you can buy a judge, a policeman—whatever you want. There are moments when I want to throw in the towel in and stop doing this. I feel it is too big for me to fight all this—the pimps, the corruption, the judges.”
“When I sleep my dreams are filled with violence and rape. When you see the marks on your skin, the scars of torture and cigarette burns, the shape of the chains on your ankles, you feel the past is ineradicable. You carry the marks of the suffering. People ask me how I can bear to keep doing what I do. I’ll tell you. It’s the evil that was done to me that propels me on. Is there any other way to exorcise it?”
“Coming back to life, to some kind of innocence, felt impossible. I didn’t know where my youth was, where to look, if not for happiness at least for a kind of peace. When I cuddle with the girls, giving them the love I never received, then I do feel happy.”
I was devastated. I felt sorry for her; I felt angry at myself. I always thought the 2006 incident is the most shameful and the gloomiest stage of my life—nobody has been through a similar situation as mine. I have been through the toughest times compared to most of the people. She has been through the worst situation a girl could probably get. When she was my age, she already accomplished such big achievement in her life. She has such a huge impact to the country, to this world. I am in my mid-twenties, and I have done nothing in my life to the contrary—only know to complain about my luck, meditate upon my misfortunes and do nothing about it. Today, she made my thoughts and belief tremble.
Now I feel like slapping my face.
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