The Road of Lost Innocence

by Somaly Mam

  Working closely with the police and the authorities, we finally tracked Ning down and, after three days, we were reunited. She had been in Battambang, in the hands of traffickers, along with a boy she knew. The boy had persuaded her that he was going to commit suicide over her, and she felt pity for him, so she had left the school to talk. Then he led my daughter to a car full of armed men.

  I didn’t realize Mariane would write about this incident, but she did. I’m sorry that my daughter’s personal life has become a public story and I won’t add to that. The people involved have been released from jail, although the trial is still pending. The Chai Hour II is still in business, still a brothel—it’s called the Leang Hour now. And the woman in the car has never been found.

  .15.

  Conclusion

  Today in our children’s shelter in Kampong Cham Province we have a twelve-year-old girl with deep circular scars around her neck and upper arms from the time a drunken client tried to hurt her. One charming fourteen-year-old girl who has been living with us for almost a year has lost her mind. When we found her she was locked in the basement of a brothel, and for the first few months she was mute and couldn’t control her body. Now she speaks, and she’s learning to help out in the kitchen. She’s very sweet, like a small child, but she doesn’t always make sense. She wasn’t always this way. We’re still not sure who she is.

  Sometimes I am flooded with anger at what these children have been through. I speak with some of the girls, and I find myself overcome by having shared in their suffering. It eats away at my bones, until I feel almost deranged.

  How did Cambodia get to be this way? Three decades of bombing, genocide, and starvation and now my country is in a state of moral bankruptcy. The Khmer no longer know who they are.

  During the Khmer Rouge regime people detached themselves from any kind of human feeling, because feeling meant pain. They learned not to trust their neighbors, their friends, their family, their own children. To avoid going mad, they shrank to the smallest part of a human, which is “me.” After the regime fell, they were silent, either because they had helped cause the suffering or because this is what they had learned to do in order to survive.

  The Khmer Rouge eliminated everything that mattered to Cambodians. And after they fell, people no longer cared about anything except money. I suppose they want to give themselves some insurance in case of another catastrophe, even though the lesson of Pol Pot—if there is one—is that there is no insurance against catastrophe.

  More than half the people in Cambodia today were born after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. Things should be improving. But the country is in a state of chaos where the only rule is every man for himself. The people in power don’t always work for the common good. When I was young, we were poorer, but school was free in those days. Today, school has to be paid for, and you can buy a diploma—or get one for free, if you show your teacher a gun. The justice system is for sale, and the mafias are close to power; the prostitution business is worth $500 million a year, almost as much as the annual budget of the government.

  Cambodian people have always been trained to obedience, and they have always been poor. In Cambodia, one child in eight dies before the age of five. The streets are full of garbage and flies and shit, and the rain churns it into muck. More than a third of the population lives on less than a dollar per day, and you have to pay the hospital when you get sick.

  Men have the power. Not all the time; in front of their parents, they keep quiet. With the powerful, they must also stay silent and perhaps prostrate themselves. But once these encounters are over, they go home to assume the upper hand and give orders. If their wife resists, they hit her.

  There is one law for women: silence before rape and silence after. We’re taught when we’re little to be like the silk-cotton tree: dam kor. Deaf and dumb. Blind too, if possible. Your daughters will look after you, because that’s their duty. Other than that, they’re not worth much.

  One-third of the prostitutes in Phnom Penh are young children. These girls are sold and beaten and abused for some kind of pleasure. In the end I don’t think there is any way you can explain or justify that, or the homeless children scrounging through garbage, inhaling glue from little cans you can buy for five hundred riels in every hardware stall, or the stolen children who are trucked into Thailand for the modern slave trade. Trying to explain it is not what I do. I keep my head down and try to help one girl after another. That is a big enough task.

  I still feel that I’m dirty and that I carry bad luck. When I sleep, my dreams are filled with violence and rape. Most of my dreams are nightmares. Last night I dreamed again of serpents crawling into my trousers. I’ve tried to rid myself of these nightmares, but they continue to haunt me.

  Consulting a psychologist isn’t enough. I did that. I’ve tried a great many things. But the past is inscribed on my body now. 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 can never be wiped away. You carry the marks of the suffering. They’re just there. But that’s precisely why I carry on with the work of AFESIP.

  A lot of people play a part in the work of saving children from sexual slavery, but I fear that some of the volunteers feel a sense of superiority toward prostituted women. They’re contemptuous of them. For me, it’s different. I’m one of them. Everything they’ve been through, I share. I wear their scars on my body and in my soul. We don’t need to say much to understand one another. We know that life is a daily hell. Some of the workers here work for their salaries; in their hearts they don’t understand.

  When I close my eyes, I see the physical tortures again. I prefer them to the psychological ones, like the fear I felt when I was told my family and my collaborators would be killed. But even so, my eyes close and the blows and kicks are there. Remembering makes you want to die, but you’re not allowed to die. You want to disappear, but you can’t disappear.

  The memories that torment me most are those of rape and the stink of sperm. In brothels, they don’t bother changing sheets much. The smell of sperm is everywhere. It’s insufferable. Even today, I often have the sense that I’m breathing in the smell of the whorehouses. The customers were dirty. They never showered. I remember one man with the most hideous breath. We had no toothpaste, but we would brush our teeth with ash or sand. Some of the clients never bothered at all; their teeth were yellow and rotting.

  I lived amid this stench for so long that I can’t bear it now. Even fifteen years later, I feel dirtied by it. So I wash myself like a madwoman, put cream on and cover myself in eau de toilette in order to mask the stench that pursues me. At home, I have a cupboard full of perfume. I spend money to blot out a smell that exists only in my imagination. I try to chase it away with the contents of my bottles.

  Writing this book has brought everything back, and I can no longer sleep. It makes me sick. I have nightmares remembering all the horrors. Sometimes I don’t know if I can bear to keep living with them. There are times when I’d like to get rid of this burden of memory that weighs me down, the roll call of my misery that forces me to have shower after shower, rubbing myself down as hard as possible before covering myself in cream and drowning myself in perfume. What’s the use of such an existence? Apart from crying, what does one do with it? Are my friends who died and are now free of it all luckier than I am? I would have liked to live a happy life, but the problems are there, always in front of us, gaping, demanding our energy, our ceaseless activity, and even our despair. To say that the past is past, that you need to put it all behind you, is what I say all the time to the girls who come to the center with their unendurable suffering.

  I know how to say all this, but I also know that it’s useless and serves little purpose. Nothing can cauterize those old wounds. If I confide in Pierre or my close friends that I feel dirty, they tell me that it’s not true, that for them I’m this, that, or the other, but I’m not dirty. These words don’t help me at all
. The only people to whom I can say that I feel dirty and who can understand are the girls who have walked the same path as I have.

  Journalists make it difficult, in a way, though I am very grateful to them. The attention of the world’s newspapers helped save our operation from being shut down. But often reporters want a “sexy” project, something hot, to wake up the readers and viewers. They ask me to talk about my past—if not, how will they convey the importance of the work we’re doing?

  That’s one of the reasons I decided to write this book. Perhaps it will stop me from having to tell my story over and over again, because repeating it is very difficult. And one day I may no longer be here, so I want everyone to know now what is happening to the women of Cambodia. Given what’s going on in my country, who knows who may still be alive tomorrow.

  When we started doing our work, we couldn’t manage to close down the small brothels. We didn’t have enough experience and the pimps and meebons just laughed at us. Then, with time, work, and support, we began doing it. Now it’s the big brothels that pose the challenge.

  We have to proceed step by step. We’ve been working for ten years, but it’s only in the last three years that we’ve begun cooperating well with the police. The justice system is beginning to improve too. When there’s an AFESIP case these days, some of the judges are more careful, because they know we don’t let things drop easily. And some people in government do help me; if we had no support from the government, none of our work would be possible.

  I never wanted to become a public person; it just happened that way. My dream, really, is to be like that old man who told me about the frogs and the king: I would like to have a quiet life, in a garden, living with all my children and with the girls from Thlok Chhrov. I would be a grandmother and great-grandmother and I would be happy, and someone else would have taken over the work of running everything. But so far it hasn’t been like that.

  I have written this book for several reasons. I want people to realize to what extent prostitutes are victimized and how important it is to help them. These women and girls are marked by their experiences for life, and it’s very hard for them ever to find even a little happiness. It simply isn’t true, as some people think, that the girls are glad to find work, that they volunteer for it, that they are well paid.

  People think prostitutes are deceitful and dishonest. They think these girls are hard and intractable—we have a saying in Cambodia: “Don’t try to bend the sroleuw tree, don’t try to change a whore.” On the contrary, prostitutes are often honest girls from the countryside, and most of them will do anything they can to leave the suffering they endure in the brothels.

  My story isn’t important. The point is not what happened to me. I write my story to shed light on the lives of so many thousands of other women. They have no voice, so let this one life stand for their stories.

  On their behalf, I would like this book to serve as a call to the governments of the world to get involved in the battle against the sexual exploitation of women and children. Victims are victims in every country.

  I recently set up a foundation in the United States that I hope will assist in our work. I want to be able to buy enough land so that one day, the girls from our Thlok Chhrov center, who have grown up with us, can farm it, all together. AFESIP is about short-term help: we cannot support a girl indefinitely. We cannot pay to educate her beyond a certain level or allow her to stay on forever, even though we may be her only family. Our new foundation will provide longer-term support and it could help other women—former prostitutes, but also orphans, ethnic minorities, the elderly. We have called it the Somaly Mam Foundation, because my notoriety helps us raise money, but I hope the victims themselves will run it.

  For the moment, our opponents are winning the war, but we’ve won one battle at least. They’ve lost face and respect. We’ve investigated this traffic, exposed it for what it is, and made it shameful. We’ve shown that these people aren’t invincible, and I’m glad we’ve managed that.

  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?

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank all the victims for their courage and for the confidence and trust they have given me. I love them like I love my own children and am so very proud of them.

  I have a special debt of gratitude to all the people who have assisted in my work and helped AFESIP in our fight against sexual slavery. I am deeply moved by the humanity, warmth, and generosity they have shown for our cause.

  There are so many special people around the world to thank. The list is too long to mention everyone, but I would like them to know that I hold them in my heart. There are some people in particular whose support has been vital: Queen Sofia of Spain has been unyielding in her compassion and, from our very first encounter, has given me hope for a new life. The Lexis Nexis Corporation with their global commitment to the rule of law and human rights have been an inspiration, especially Andy Prozes, Robert Rigby-Hall, and Bill Livermore, whom I trust and respect like a brother.

  I am so grateful to everyone at Glamour, especially Cindi Leive and Mariane Pearl, for their friendship and support. My heartfelt thanks to Susan Sarandon, Barbara Walters, Petra Nemcova, Daryl Hannah, Diane von Furstenberg, Norman Jean Roy and Jojo, Jack Milon, Ernesto Carlos Gerardo, the Lumpp family, Renée and Anne Daurelle, and Catherine Madar and her two daughters in Paris. Despite everyone’s busy lives, they have given so much of their time, their hearts, and their energy. Thank you.

  Nic Lumpp, Jared Greenberg, and Ed Adams of the Somaly Mam Foundation have been tireless in their hard work to raise awareness about our mission in the United States. They have proven that dedication and sheer will can bring about enormous change.

  The Cambodian government went above and beyond the call of duty to bring my daughter back to me. I am eternally in your debt.

  I would also like to thank the people who have helped make this book happen: Katrin Hodapp, my little sister; Alain Carrière, my French publisher, whom I view as an adopted grandfather; Ruth Marshall, who gave me the confidence I needed to find these words; and Susanna Lea, whose passion for women’s causes I greatly admire.

  Special love to my beautiful sisters, Chenda Sophea and Ouk Vongvathany, and to my dearest friends: Kimleng, Chantha, Kien Sereyphal, Sapor, Sofia, and Emmanuel Colineau for your spirit, kindness, and care. You have been a constant source of comfort in dark times.

  I wish to thank my adoptive family who took me into their hearts and taught me the values of silence, honesty, and hard work.

  Above all, I wish to thank my three children for their patience and for teaching me how to love.

  Appendix

  A portion of the proceeds from this book will be donated to the Somaly Mam Foundation.

  The Somaly Mam Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit charity that combats illegal trafficking and sexual slavery by supporting organizations that rescue, rehabilitate, and reintegrate young victims. All organizations funded by the Somaly Mam Foundation are audited operationally and financially. AFESIP Cambodia is currently the foundation’s primary beneficiary. Led by Somaly Mam, the Somaly Mam Foundation is committed to ending sexual slavery and giving victims a chance at a new life.

  To learn more about the Somaly Mam Foundation, get involved, or make a donation, visit the Web site: www.somaly.org.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Somaly Mam is cofounder and president of AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Situations) in Cambodia and president of the Somaly Mam Foundation in the United States. Under her leadership, the two organizations seek to save, rehabilitate, and socially reintegrate victims of sexual slavery in Southeast Asia and have rescued more than 4,000 women and children to date. In 2006, Mam was named a CNN Hero and a Glamour Woman of the Year. She is also the recipient of the 2008 World Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child Award. She lives in Cambodia.

 
*1In September 2006 we had to close that center for lack of funds.

  Return to text.

  Translation copyright © 2008 by Somaly Mam

  All Rights Reserved

  Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.spiegelandgrau.com

  Originally published in France as Le silence de l’innocence by Editions Anne Carrière, Paris, in 2005. Copyright © 2005 by Editions Anne Carrière, Paris.

  This translation was first published in Great Britain by Virago Press, London, in 2008.

  SPIEGEL & GRAU is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed due to issues of transliteration and, in other cases, the author’s desire to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mam, Somaly.

  [Silence de l’innocence. English]

  The road of lost innocence / by Somaly Mam with Ruth Marshall.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Child prostitution—Cambodia. 2. Child sexual abuse—Cambodia. 3. Children—Crimes against—Cambodia. 4. Mam, Somaly. 5. Afesip (Organization) I. Marshall, Ruth, 1961– II. Title.

  HQ242.3.A5M3613 2008

  362.76092—dc22

  [B]

  2008028302

  eISBN: 978-0-385-52854-2

  v3.0