Former Sex Slave Seeks Help As 4-year-old Found, in Cambodian brothel

[DWB]

CANBERRA (Reuters Life!) - A former sex slave on Monday launched a global campaign against trafficking, saying the age of girls forced into prostitution keeps getting younger.

Cambodian Somaly Mam, whose eponymous foundation is dedicated to fighting the $12 billion a year sex-trafficking industry, said a four-year-old girl was found last month at a brothel in Cambodia after being reported by a male client.

The youngster had been sold to the brothel by her mother, who is also a prostitute.

She is now being cared for at one of the seven shelters run by the Somaly Mam Foundation in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam set up to protect and rehabilitate girls rescued from sex slavery. The group also has an office in Thailand dealing with repatriation.

"You just have to hold her and stay with her and show her that you love her. Children can become children again," Mam told Reuters as she launched a joint venture with cosmetics retailer The Body Shop to raise awareness of sex trafficking.

"There is this belief that having sex with a virgin will cure you of HIV so there is an increasing market for younger and younger girls. In my time it was girls aged 15 or 16 but it has got younger and younger."

The United Nations estimates that two million women and children are trafficked every year, with 30 percent of these in Asia. Poor families sometimes sell a daughter to pay off debts.

PERSONAL TRAGEDY

Mam personally knows the horror of a life of slavery having been sold to a brothel at the age of 16 by an abusive elderly man whom she called "grandfather." She was sold to pay off his debts.

She managed to escape the brothel with the help of a Swiss patron who paid off the owner and has since campaigned tirelessly against forced prostitution, setting up the Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007 to rescue and rehabilitate girls.

She was recently named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People."

Mam, who wrote about her journey from sex slave to crusader against prostitution in her memoir "The Road of Lost Innocence," has faced threats from pimps and organized crime syndicates over the years while her shelters have come under armed attack.

In 2006, Mam's teenage daughter was kidnapped. She was eventually rescued, but Mam still refuses to leave her work.

"All my family is safe now. We have bodyguards for my children," said Mam who refuses to give details about where her family lives.

She said global awareness about sexual slavery was extremely low and she hoped that joining forces with The Body Shop in a campaign spanning 60 nations would raise the issue's profile.

She also hoped this would lead to an increase in funds available to set up shelters were former sex workers could be trained in other industries such as sewing, weaving and even micro-finance so that they could set up their own businesses.
Over the next three years The Body Shop will campaign for governments to implement strict anti-trafficking policies and legislation, and to dedicate more resources to this cause.

Just breaks your heart. On top of the fact that they are just kids, to know HIV+ men are seeking them out, popping their cherry, thinking it's going to cure them, but infecting the child instead... makes me sick to my stomach.

One more piece of evidence, that there is no God.

[slapass]

She is a brave woman.

[Libertine]

Why doesn't anyone kill the guys who are responsible for this?

[baddog]

Originally Posted by DirtyWhiteBoy

One more piece of evidence, that there is no God.

Your math sucks.

[Ayla_SquareTurtle]

Originally Posted by Libertine

Why doesn't anyone kill the guys who are responsible for this?

If you got the guns, I got the time.

[DWB]

Originally Posted by baddog

Your math sucks.

That actually made me LOL.

[Libertine]

Originally Posted by Ayla_SquareTurtle

If you got the guns, I got the time.

It was a serious question, not internet tough guy talk.

I used to live in a red light district, and while there was a lot of crime going on, I also saw what happened to the wannabe pimps when they hurt the girls. The local "businessmen" frowned upon that quite a bit.

So what I'm wondering is if those places don't have the same type of businessmen I'm talking about.

[wiggitywack]

Cambo is a fucked up place, no doubt

[Smiley]

Originally Posted by Libertine

It was a serious question, not internet tough guy talk.

I used to live in a red light district, and while there was a lot of crime going on, I also saw what happened to the wannabe pimps when they hurt the girls. The local "businessmen" frowned upon that quite a bit.

So what I'm wondering is if those places don't have the same type of businessmen I'm talking about.

money...plain and simple...

red light district seems like a business sector that is run like any other business....they have a moral code...some business ethics....like when the mob ran vegas...or anything for that matter...if someone did something that you did and hurt the image of that product...there were consequences... but where this is happening, its closure of one brothel and that just means more business for the others...

RLD seems (and believe me i can be wrong)...like they have true business models of how to do things and how not to do things....cross that line and its not the law that comes after them (even if they really do)...its the other business owners that come after you....

sad story...but until governments step in and actually close these brothels, itll continue....its sad to say, part of their lifestyle...

as for these sick fucks that first of all what sex with such a young girl or boy for that matter....need to have a nail driven thru their skulls....ok that was a little bit of gfy tough guy talk...

[notime]

Makes me sick to my stomach too.
Hang those sick fuckers.

[Ayla_SquareTurtle]

Originally Posted by Libertine

It was a serious question, not internet tough guy talk.

I used to live in a red light district, and while there was a lot of crime going on, I also saw what happened to the wannabe pimps when they hurt the girls. The local "businessmen" frowned upon that quite a bit.

So what I'm wondering is if those places don't have the same type of businessmen I'm talking about.

I didn't think you weren't serious, and though I won't actually be flying around the world on a vigilante justice mission anytime soon, I do think these fucks are better off dead.

Unfortunately, I don't think that many of the areas where children are kept as slaves in brothels adhere to the same rules as the red light district where you lived. There are docus on the subject, and it seems to be pretty accepted within the areas where it occurs. People are living in poverty and some brothel owners, adult prostitutes, or even sympathetic customers are unlikely to put their ass on the line in any way to help the victims, much less actually kill to help them.

[DWB]

Originally Posted by Libertine

It was a serious question, not internet tough guy talk.

I used to live in a red light district, and while there was a lot of crime going on, I also saw what happened to the wannabe pimps when they hurt the girls. The local "businessmen" frowned upon that quite a bit.

So what I'm wondering is if those places don't have the same type of businessmen I'm talking about.

Cops and politicians are in on it. The sex trade in Asia is HUGE and all walks of man are part of it. Of course there is also the fact that human life and a womans life in general is not worth very much in parts of the world, especially parts of South East Asia.

[Tasty1]

Even the people from Khmer Rouge got away with al their crimes. You can see the website with pictures of people facing death and torture: tuolsleng_com

No money, no education (all people with education where killed in the war), and former child soldiers with no feelings. It will take some years before it gets better there. You can see the most are trying hard but a lot of people went crazy there in the war. But it is also a very nice country, with a lot of friendly people.

[Fletch XXX]

1/3 of sex trafficking in US is children.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/cshti08pr.htm