#somaly

Watch 101 East – Truth or Lies: Somaly Mam video

Watch 101 East – Truth or Lies: Somaly Mam video

This is something I have wanted to write about for a long time. I haven’t, because the issue has made me far too angry and upset, and I wanted to calm down before I approached it. It is the “controversy” surrounding the Somaly Mam Foundation, and the fall of Somaly Mam’s reputation as an international anti-human trafficking hero and human rights crusader. Right off the bat, I need to say I idolized Somaly Mam. Ever since I started doing research on human trafficking and got interested in international aid work, her story, journey, and ambitions touched my heart. Her story was and still is miraculous. Her work is even more so. So I want to begin with this: her accomplishments should not be thrown under the bus for any reason. Mam’s foundation has provided housing, training, and support to many survivors in need. It was a gold-rated non-profit, 5 star rating in terms of documented progress and transparency. It helped create and fund over 10 shelters in 4 different countries, provided funding for several grass-roots anti-trafficking organizations, and networked to push through law to protect women and trafficking survivors in SE Asian countries. So please keep that in mind when Simon Marks, reporter from England who started all of this in his damning essay, reports that she’s “tyrannical, moody, erratic, and entitled.”

For those who haven’t heard the story of what happened, Marks released a report that effectively destroyed the reputation, and decades of work, by a woman whom even he acknowledges had done enormous good. The slamming report came out in May of 2014 titled “Somaly Mam: The Holy Saint (and Sinner) of Sex Trafficking”, and led to follow-up investigation by a private law-firm, and then a very prompt and quiet resignation of Mam with the closing of her entire foundation that left her supporters, including me, shocked and upset. Her crime? Over-exaggerating and lying about her tragic past as a sex slave and the stories of some of the girls in her shelter to secure more funding.

Now, a lot of things are at play here. Somaly became more than an activist, she became a celebrity activist. As such her daily life was suddenly under scrutiny – most notably from Marks himself, who, after digging through his articles seems uncannily obsessed with Mam, reporting on her consistently since 2012 in the Cambodia Daily.

Also at play are the actual credible criticisms against the Somaly Mam Foundation and the sex-trafficking abolitionist movement in general. And really, all international nonprofits. It has been known by anyone who has studied international non-profit work even a little bit that corruption and lying to secure funding is almost a universal trick of the trade. In a lot of places nonprofits are just another string of organized crime. Over-exaggerated stories and more commonly non-consensual/exploitative/sensationalized reporting/photos created of victims become a tool for fundraisers. And this phenomenon speaks more to the industry and our reception to this industry than it does to one individual such as Somaly Mam. Is it any surprise that in a world of globalized capitalism nonprofits need to operate as for-profits? Sell their services and emotions in a way that is not unlike the way marketers over-exaggerate the positive parts of a product? And perhaps it is this reason why it rightfully repulses us so: but the facts don’t lie. Nobody wants to read a 300 page report on the complex reasons sex-trafficking exists. They really don’t want to hear about how consumption and imperialism of the West that fuels poverty in the East is a cause of it. The religious right who have a very special obsession with fighting sex trafficking because they’re obsessed with controlling sex in all forms love to see victims rescued (in what some academics have termed the destructive “rescue industry”) but turn their eyes away from the “rehabilitation” part of that rescue, which often just trains SE Asian women to be released into the ruthless garment industry since no other job markets exist, after which they will willingly return to sex work as they make more money and in a lot of cases are safer than working in the large factories that stitch our Western clothes. Ah yes, most people would rather see a crying child, a sob story, a story sad enough to make you balk, but not too sad that you lose hope. The trick is to show the crying child, then sell you a brighter future possible with your contribution.* Nobody wants to see the asterisk at the bottom that says *contribution for a better future only valid for 3 days and can’t be guaranteed until total elimination of poverty. This is without a doubt a much more effective way of getting the masses to pay up, because what nonprofits need more than anything it is money to run their programs. So can you honestly blame them for working the way the system set them up to succeed?

This both is and isn’t about Somaly Mam. Is what she did wrong? Absolutely. Was part of my reaction of anger and frustration a result of seeing a beloved role-model that tarnished her own image by lying? Without a doubt. The implications for such a betrayal of trust rang in my head like bells: what lies in the future for large anti-trafficking organizations? And most importantly, the main reason why I wanted to write this: what lies in store for victims of sexual exploitation? The claim that sexual assault and sex trafficking statistics are overhyped is a common theory pushed by the men’s right movement. The last thing we need is to give any fire to these myths. Notice above I didn’t say over-exaggerated statistics – if anything sound and reliable statistics encompassing trafficking don’t exist, because long-term international research hasn’t been conducted. Estimates are used, and always referenced as such. And, if anything, are generally conservative – especially in the category of violence against women. So why did my hair raise and cat-claws come out when I read Mark’s article, given how I do understand very well criticism of Mam’s foundation? Because he absolutely tears apart Mam for having “inconsistencies” in her story of abuse – a tactic used again and again by victim blamers against women who describe a traumatic event in their life. Marks spittles on and on that “she mixed up dates, names, times” – when neuroscience has told us over and over that during traumatic events that parts of our brain responsible for long-term memory shuts down. And while I think Mam might have exaggerated parts of her story, I don’t think she was lying about ALL of it like he claims, particularly if you consider just for a moment the sobering statistics of violence against women in Cambodia that do exist. The report reaked of misogyny, and made me question why the hell someone would go through so much trouble to tear down a figure they considered to be doing good work in the community. Again and again Marks references the “millions” Mam “scammed from donors with her lies.” And all I could think of was how the same ‘argument’ is used against Anita Sarkeesian every damn day on the internet.