September 16, 2010 3:20 PM
Cambodian human trafficking - Somaly Mam's story
For me, the most vivid and meaningful way to study other cultures is through the stories of people who live there. I learned much from The Road of Lost Innocence: the true story of a Cambodian heroine.
Somaly Mam's memoir of growing up in Cambodia, of being sold as 12-year-old girl into sexual slavery and of her eventual triumph over circumstances to become free and to help others caught in this wicked web of crimes against women was enlightening and inspirational.
Publishers Weekly review:
The horror and violence perpetrated on young girls to feed the sex trade industry in southeast Asia is personalized in this graphic story. Of mixed race, Khmer and Phnong, Mam is living on her own in the forest in northern Cambodia around 1980 when a 55-year-old stranger claims he will take her to her missing family.Grandfather beats and abuses the nine-year-old Mam and sells her virginity to a Chinese merchant to cover a gambling debt. She is subsequently sold into a brothel in Phnom Penh, and the daily suffering and humiliation she endures is almost impossible to imagine or absorb (I was dead. I had no affection for anyone).
She recounts recalcitrant girls being tortured and killed, and police collusion and government involvement in the sex trade; she manages to break the cycle only when she discovers the advantages of ferengi (foreign) clients and eventually marries a Frenchman. She comes back to Cambodia from France, now unafraid, and with her husband, Pierre; sets up a charity, AFESIP, action for women in distressing circumstances; and fearlessly devotes herself to helping prostitutes and exploited children.
The statistics are shocking: one in every 40 Cambodian girls (some as young as five) will be sold into sex slavery. Mam brings to the fore the AIDS crisis, the belief that sex with a virgin will cure the disease and the Khmer tradition of women's obedience and servitude. This moving, disturbing tale is not one of redemption but a cry for justice and support for women's plight everywhere.
We are doing a great disservice to our children to teach them that all cultures are equal. They are clearly not. And while we should definitely teach them to love and respect individuals from other cultures and not to feel superior because of different customs - we do need to pass on the idea of American exceptionalism, and gratitude that we live in a land of opportunity based on Christian values of equality and respect and tolerance.
It's not that as a nation or as individuals we are perfect, but our founding documents were based on ideals of equality which continued to work like yeast through our society until black and white, men and women shared the same privileges. The status of children was also lifted and they were not subject to the kind of exploitation they had been.
This is not the case throughout much of our planet. In many countries, human life is cheap and women and girls are subjected to horrible, horrible circumstances.
Posted in Books, Oppression | Permalink
Comments
"We are doing a great disservice to our children to teach them that all cultures are equal. They are clearly not. And while we should definitely teach them to love and respect individuals from other cultures and not to feel superior because of different customs - we do need to pass on the idea of American exceptionalism, and gratitude that we live in a land of opportunity based on Christian values of equality and respect and tolerance."
You say it perfectly. Thanks for the book rec. I read "Infidel" because you mentioned it here, and it was eye-opening and validating both.
Posted by: Denise | September 17, 2010 11:56 AM
