Somaly Mam
Somaly Mam (mɑːm somaːliː; born 1970/71) is a Cambodian anti-trafficking advocate who focuses primarily on sex trafficking. From 1996 to 2014, Mam was involved in campaigns against sex trafficking. She set up the Somaly Mam Foundation, raised money, appeared on major television programs, and spoke at many international events.
Somaly Mam

Cropped from photo by TheIRD · File:Somaly Mam and Mikhail Bell.jpg · CC BY 2.0
- Name
- Somaly Mam
- Born
- 1970 or 1971
- Birthplace
- Mondulkiri, Khmer Republic
- Known for
- Anti-sex-trafficking
- Occupation
- Former CEO of Somaly Mam Foundation Somaly Mam (mɑːm somaːliː; born 1970/71) is a Cambodian anti-trafficking advocate who focuses primarily on sex trafficking.
- Nationality
- Cambodia
- Fields
- writer
- Languages
- Khmer
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Somaly Mam (mɑːm somaːliː; born 1970/71) is a Cambodian anti-trafficking advocate who focuses primarily on sex trafficking. From 1996 to 2014, Mam was involved in campaigns against sex trafficking. She set up the Somaly Mam Foundation, raised money, appeared on major television programs, and spoke at many international events.
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Somaly Mam (born 1970) is a human rights defender and writer and a national of Cambodia. The human rights defender was born in Mondulkiri Province. Somaly Mam is active in writer. Languages used include Khmer.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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wikidata · Q266327 · wikipedia · Somaly Mam
In this article
Biography
Biography
After allegations of lying had appeared in The Cambodia Daily in 2012 and 2013, Newsweek ran a cover-story in May 2014 claiming that Mam had fabricated stories of abuse about herself and others. After the Somaly Mam Foundation undertook its own investigation through Goodwin Procter, a Boston-based law firm, she resigned from her position and the foundation shut down in October 2014. She moved back to live in Cambodia before returning to the US later that year to begin new fundraising activities.

Somaly Mam at the U.S. State Department
TheIRD · [https: Somaly Mam (Somaly Mam Foundation)
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Somaly Mam • Native Name — ម៉ម សុម៉ាលី • Born — 1970 or 1971 • Birthplace — Mondulkiri, Khmer Republic • Known for — Anti-sex-trafficking • Occupation — Former CEO of Somaly Mam Foundation Somaly Mam (mɑːm somaːliː; born 1970/71) is a Cambodian anti-trafficking advocate who focuses primarily on sex trafficking. From 1996 to 2014, Mam was involved in campaigns against sex trafficking. She set up the Somaly Mam Foundation, raised money, appeared on major television programs, and spoke at many international events. After allegations of lying had appeared in The Cambodia Daily in 2012 and 2013, Newsweek ran a cover-story in May 2014 claiming that Mam had fabricated stories of abuse about herself and others. After the Somaly Mam Foundation undertook its own investigation through Goodwin Procter, a Boston-based law firm, she resigned from her position and the foundation shut down in October 2014. She moved back to live in Cambodia before returning to the US later that year to begin new fundraising activities.
Early life
Early life
Mam was born to a tribal minority family in Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia. In her memoir, The Road of Lost Innocence, she states that she was born in either 1970, or 1971. Mam was investigated by a journalist working in Cambodia, and his allegations that key parts of her early life were false were carried by Newsweek in May 2014. Mam resigned from the Somaly Mam Foundation shortly thereafter. An investigation by Marie Claire magazine came to a different conclusion, finding witnesses that supported Mam's story and contradicted Newsweek's allegations. In her book Mam said she attended school in Cambodia, but did not graduate. According to the Newsweek article, Mam did graduate and found two students and a teacher to support their claims, but Marie Claire quotes the school director remembering she attended only three years of school. Mam said that she was abused by her "grandfather" until she was approximately 14 and that she was sold to a brothel and forced into prostitution and that she was also forced to marry a stranger. She has claimed that she was forced to prostitute herself on the streets and made to have sex with five or six clients per day. Mam left Cambodia for Paris in 1993 where she married a French citizen, Pierre Legros. They divorced in 2008.
Charity and achievements
Charity and achievements
Mam was an untrained healthcare worker with Médecins Sans Frontières and, in her spare time, handed out condoms, soap, and information to women in the brothels. In 1996, she co-founded AFESIP (Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire or "Acting for Women in Distressing Situations"), a Cambodian NGO dedicated to rescuing, housing and rehabilitating women and children in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam who have been sexually exploited. AFESIP conducts outreach work to try helping the women still enslaved. The organization also works with law enforcement to raid the brothels. The company has locations in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. In June 2007, Mam co-founded the Somaly Mam Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed in the United States that supported anti-trafficking groups and helped women and girls who had been forced into sexual slavery. The Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) attracted the support of U.S. business leaders and Hollywood stars. SMF was the global fundraising arm of Somaly Mam's Phnom Penh-based AFESIP. After the May 2014 Newsweek article questioning Mam's claims, the Somaly Mam Foundation undertook its own investigation by Goodwin Procter, a Boston-based law firm. Mam resigned from her position and later the foundation shut down in October 2014. In January 2015, Mam and former operations director of SMF Rigmor Schneider launched a New Somaly Mam Fund as a funding source for AFESIP. In 2016, a new charity, Together1heart, became the primary fundraising vehicle for AFESIP. Actress AnnaLynne McCord is CEO of Together1heart. Posts on the group's Facebook page suggest that Mam is still heavily involved, and McCord insists that Mam is a "survivor" and appears to absolve her of wrongdoing, while stating that neither Together1heart nor AFESIP has made changes as a result of the 2014 public relations crisis.
Scrutiny of Mam's stories
Scrutiny of Mam's stories
Scrutiny of Mam's story began with comments she made at the United Nations. Speaking on a United Nations panel to member states, international aid organizations and the media in New York on April 3, Mam stated that eight girls had been killed after her organization AFESIP conducted a high-profile raid on a massage parlor at the Chai Hour II Hotel in Phnom Penh, where 83 women and girls were taken and placed in her refuge center. Somaly Mam has since admitted that this was "inaccurate" and that the Cambodian army had not killed eight girls. On 25 April 2012, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported Mam's ex-husband and one-time AFESIP director Pierre Legros, saying that Mam had misrepresented an incident involving their daughter in 2004. Mam had long claimed that the teenager was kidnapped and raped by human traffickers in retaliation for her raid on the Chai Hour II Hotel. In her 2007 autobiography, Mam wrote that the people involved in the kidnapping of her daughter were released from jail, though a trial was pending. Legros said their daughter was not kidnapped, but had run away with her boyfriend, and that in his view the abduction story was a means of "marketing for the Somaly Mam Foundation". The U.S. Ambassador at the time, Joseph Mussomeli, wrote in a diplomatic cable in 2004 that Mam claimed that Mam's daughter had been "lured by her peers" to Battambang Province and that she was later found in a night club there in the company of three men who were arrested and charged with trafficking. Cambodian officials told the newspaper they had no record of such events. In October 2013, the Cambodia Daily alleged a further deception took place in January 1998, when Mam was propelled into the international media spotlight largely owing to the on-camera testimony of the young Meas Ratha and other alleged victims of Cambodia's child sex industry. Mam's work as president of AFESIP was being featured on French television as part of the popular weekly show Envoyé spécial. Ratha, then a teenager of about 14 years from Takeo province, told a story of sexual slavery in an unspecified brothel somewhere in Phnom Penh. Sixteen years later, Ratha (now 32 years old and married) told the newspaper that her testimony for the France 2 channel was fabricated and scripted for her by Mam as a means of drumming up support for the organization. Ratha said, "The video that you see, everything that I put in is not my story." On 1 June 2015 the Phnom Penh Post, in an article based on recently released State Department cables, revealed that the United States government "...knew about the now-infamous deceptions and malpractice within organisations run by Somaly Mam for years prior to the media exposés". The article cites a cable titled Somaly Mam Under Microscope sent to the State Department from the US embassy in Phnom Penh on May 8, 2012. Speaking of Mam's claim that her daughter was abducted in 2006 in revenge for an AFESIP raid on a Phnom Penh brothel in 2004, the cable says: "Ms Mam has made this claim on numerous occasions despite having reported to post [the embassy] at the time of the incident that the girl was not kidnapped but rather lured by her peers from Phnom Penh to Battambang". The embassy cable quoted sources in the anti-trafficking community in Phnom Penh as saying that Mam was "rotten to the core," but as having made a "strategic decision to remain silent on concerns about AFESIP's accounting systems and general lack of financial controls to avoid putting … other anti-[trafficking] NGOs 'at risk'".
Resignation
Resignation
On May 28, 2014, after the Newsweek exposé, and receiving the report from lawyers, Mam resigned from the Somaly Mam Foundation. In late 2014, Mam returned to New York, hoping to restore her reputation and launched a public relations campaign, hiring publicity firm Jonathan Marder & Company. Mam protested her innocence in a September 2014 interview in Marie Claire, and launched the New Somaly Mam Fund soon after. In October 2014 the Cambodian government announced that Mam would be prohibited from operating an NGO, but days later appeared to withdraw the prohibition. By December 2014 she was accepting donations for a new NGO with headquarters in Texas, "The New Somaly Mam Fund: Voices for Change". As was the case with her previous venture, US actress Susan Sarandon was recruited to sit on the board of the charity. "I hope that chapter is closed. I am very comfortable that what she is saying is the truth. The new organization will not rescue women and girls but collaborate with other NGOs to rehabilitate and educate them once they are free so they can find jobs", the co-founder of the 'fund', Rigmor Schneider told a reporter, and explained plans to operate two residential centres. "Basically what we're looking for now is funding." On October 9, 2014, in an interview in Global Post, Mam's ex-husband and co-founder of AFESIP Pierre Legros said: "When you work in this world, you know fabricated stories are used by everyone to get funding." He was more concerned about "mismanagement and sexual abuse allegations within a shelter in 2006." He said that he wished "to denounce the logic of a failing system praising 'development'."
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1970
Somaly Mam born at Mondulkiri Province.
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Somaly Mam”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q266327: Somaly Mam
Unverified · Wikidata
Honors and awards
(Newest first) • POSCO TJ Park Prize, POSCO TJ Park Foundation, 2012 • The Guardian Top 100 Women: Activists and Campaigners, 2011 • The Daily Beast Women in the World, 2011 • TIME magazine's 100 most influential people, with the accompanying article written by actress Angelina Jolie, 2009 • World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child in Sweden for her "dangerous struggle" to defend the rights of children in Cambodia. (2008) • Roland Berger Human Dignity Award 2008 • Honorary Doctor of Public Service from Regis University (2007) • CNN Hero, 2006 • Olympic flag bearer, 2006 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, Torino, Italy. • Glamour magazine named Somaly Mam "Woman of the Year" in 2006 • Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in the presence of Queen Sofia of Spain, 1998 No date given: • "Mimosa D'Oro" • Festival du Scoop Prize, France • Excmo Ayuntaniento de Galdar Concejalia de Servicio Sociale, Spain • U.S. State Department "Heroes of Anti-Trafficking" award.
Literature
Scholarly footprint
A count of publications is evidence of attention, not of standing, and is given here only as a measure.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Former Afesip Director Denies Claim of Killings. The Cambodia Daily. 2012-04-23.
- 2.Mullany, Gerry. Activist Resigns Amid Charges of Fabrication. The New York Times. 29 May 2014.
- 3.Pesta, Abigail "Somaly Mam's Story: 'I Didn't Lie. , Marie Claire, September 16, 2014. Accessed September 16, 2017.
- 4.Wilwohl, Joshua. Somaly Mam Foundation Ceases Operations. The Cambodia Daily. 2014-10-18.
- 5.Taylor, Adam. Why would Somaly Mam quit her own sex-trafficking foundation?. The Washington Post. 29 May 2014.
- 6.Mam, Somaly. The Road of Lost Innocence. Random House Publishing. 2–45. September 9, 2008. 978-0-385-52621-0.
- 7.Marks, Simon. Somaly Mam: The Holy Saint (and Sinner) of Sex Trafficking. Newsweek. 21 May 2014.
- 8.Stolen Innocence. November 19, 2005.
- 9.Hosking, Patrick. A Life in the Day: Somaly Mam. The Sunday Times (U.K.). December 4, 2005.
- 10.Dosomething.org. Change-Maker in Women's History: Somaly Mam. March 27, 2009.
- 11.Women in the World: Somaly Mam, Cambodia. The Daily Beast. 6 March 2011.
- 12.Somaly Mam and the Dark Side of Charity. 2014-07-07.
- 13.PBS. Rescuing Child Sex Workers. February 12, 2010.
- 14.Simon Marks in Cambodia Daily October 13, 2013
- 15.Somaly Mam Foundation. www.somaly.org.
- 16.Anderson, Lisa. Somaly Mam Foundation quietly closes , Thomas Reuters Foundation, October 21, 2014. Accessed September 16, 2017.
- 17.Anderson, Lisa. Disgraced anti-sex slavery crusader Mam unveils plans for new group, Reuters, December 24, 2014. Accessed September 16, 2017.
- 18.Robertson, Holly. Whatever happened to… Somaly Mam?. Southeast Asia Globe. Globe Media Asia. 24 April 2017.
- 19.Team — Together 1 Heart.
- 20.Uk.reuters.com. Award-winning Cambodian activist quits after probes into her past. 2014-05-29.
- 21.Time Magazine. Somaly Mam. April 30, 2009.
- 22.The Cambodia Daily. More Questions Over Somaly Mam's Kidnapping Claim. 2012-04-25.
- 23.Simon Marks and Phorn Bopha in Cambodia Daily October 12, 2013
- 24.Pye, Daniel. US was on to Somaly Mam. www.phnompenhpost.com.
- 25.Somaly Mam's Resignation.
- 26.Grove, Lloyd. Who's Telling The Truth About Somaly Mam? A Smashed Icon, A Media Brawl—and a Comeback, The Daily Beast, September 19, 2014. Accessed September 16, 2017
- 27.Anne Elizabeth Moore. The Return of America's Favorite Anti-Trafficker. The Baffler. 29 September 2014.
- 28.Naren, Kuch. Officials Hand Donations to Somaly Mam's NGO. Cambodia Daily. 31 December 2014.
- 29.Disgraced Activist Somaly Mam to Launch New Organization After Resigning. Newsweek. Reuters. 24 December 2014.
- 30.Clothilde Le Coz. Cambodia: Somaly Mam's ex-husband speaks out. Global Post. 9 October 2014.
- 31.POSCO TJ Park Foundation names three winners of annual prizes. The Korea Herald. 2 February 2012.
- 32.Saner, Emine. Somaly Mam. The Guardian. March 8, 2011.
- 33.Simon Marks in Cambodia Daily April 26, 2012
- 34.Cambodian activist who rescues sex slaves wins World's Children's Prize, International Herald Tribune, (AP), April 16, 2008
- 35.Roland Berger Stiftung. Somaly Mam from Cambodia is the first winner of the Roland Berger Award.
- 36.Regis University. Honorary Degrees.
- 37.Pearl, Mariane. Global Diary Cambodia: The Sex Slave Tragedy. Glamour. August 2006.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 1
- Mam, Somaly. The Road of Lost Innocence. Random House Publishing. 2009. 978-0385526227.
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