The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. – Herbert Agar
Even ignoring the immorality of using lies to support one’s agenda, there is another major problem with the tactic: unlike the truth, lies are unable to stand on their own. Facts are what they are; even if they are neglected, forgotten, buried and denied they continue to exist, waiting to be uncovered again. Events produce effects, and the evidence of those effects may not always be obvious to those interested in hiding the truth; it simply rests wherever it falls, awaiting a future day of discovery. A lie, on the other hand, is like a wooden house in a wet climate: without constant maintenance it will soon begin to rot and fall apart, and if there are forces actively working against it that day will come sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, it is the nature of human folly that most of our species prefer comfortable lies to uncomfortable truths, and even when those lies start to collapse many will ignore the process until the roof falls in on their heads…at which point they will invariably insist it was due to sabotage by their enemies rather than to the inherent unsoundness of the construction.
Somaly Mam has built an elaborate edifice of lies in which to house her extremely profitable business, and has never been terribly concerned about those she has hurt in the process. In my column “Schadenfreude” I wrote,
…Cambodian police, aided and abetted by Somaly Mam (who is herself financed by money from neofeminists, religious fanatics, trafficking alarmists and the garment industry), have conducted a series of high-profile brothel raids and streetwalker sweeps, often accompanied by Western journalists like Nicholas Kristof who are interested in advancing their careers and reputations by pandering to “trafficking” hysteria. None of these people care one iota about the lives, needs and desires of women; “rescuing” whores is to them nothing but a means to their own personal ends, and after the cameras stop rolling or Kristof stops “tweeting” they are no more interested in these women’s welfare than they would be in the container which held a portion of recently-consumed food. The “rescued victims” are thrown into filthy, crowded cells at Somaly Mam’s “rehabilitation centers” where they are beaten, robbed, gang-raped and starved while their “savior” hobnobs with celebrities and receives accolades from anti-whore fanatics. Young girls who submit to brainwashing become…“poster children” and older ones are sent as slaves to sweatshops, while those who refuse are simply left to rot unless they can escape. Groups like Human Rights Watch have repeatedly protested this horrific abuse, and sex worker rights groups have released short documentaries like “Caught Between the Tiger and the Crocodile” or videos like “Somaly Uh Uh” in order to alert Westerners to the atrocities their ignorant and ill-considered jihad against harlotry has enabled…
But in the two years since that essay, Mam’s jerry-built structure has begun to crumble. First, it was revealed that women she had claimed in her press releases as underage and coerced were neither, and those she claimed to have been murdered or abducted by “traffickers” were alive and well. Her ex-husband also revealed that their daughter, whom Mam claimed “had…been kidnapped and gang-raped in revenge for her mother’s activism …had simply run off with her boyfriend”; the daughter, who lives with her mother, has confirmed that. A year ago it was revealed that Long Pros, a young woman whose eye had supposedly been gouged out by a “pimp”, and whom Mam had exploited as an “anti-trafficking” poster child, had never been involved in sex work and had lost her eye to a tumor. Just last month Meas Ratha, Mam’s very first iconic “trafficking victim” at the beginning of her crusade in 1998, said she could no longer live a lie; she admitted that (like Long Pros) she had never been a sex worker, and that “her testimony…was fabricated and scripted for her by Ms. Mam.” Former “rescued sex slaves” who worked for Mam’s organization AFESIP have reported endemic sexual harassment and even rape by male bosses, especially two named Phana and Ou Sophan (the latter one of Mam’s relatives); those who reported them were fired and anyone who sided with the victims was disciplined. And in a recent interview, Mam’s ex-husband disputed even her own claims of having been “trafficked”: “She was a prostitute. Was she abused? Yes. Was she trafficked? I doubt it. No one has proof.”
As you might expect, Mam’s organization denies everything. She “misspoke” when she made false accusations of murder and rape. A spokeswoman who insisted that Long Pros’ parents, doctors and medical records were all wrong told reporters, “you are now bullying victims of sex slavery.” The reaction to Meas Ratha’s revelation was, “We don’t know why, nor will we speculate on why Meas Ratha has allegedly made [these] claims,” accompanied by an accusation that the paper which reported the story “has never been historically fair with Somaly” and is involved in a “witch hunt”. “Trafficking” fetishist Nicholas Kristof, one of the major proponents of Mam’s legend, doesn’t care; his assistant told a reporter, “Nick isn’t going to give a comment because it seems the reports are unrelated to the reporting and writing he has done on Somaly Mam.” And not one of the Hollywood stars, American politicians or fashion-industry moguls who have feted, promoted and bankrolled Mam and her exploitative “foundation” have seen fit to distance themselves from her or to publicly demand an explanation. It won’t be long before they’re forced to do so by increasing media attention, but I don’t expect much fanfare; they’ll just quietly exit the collapsing building, dust off their expensive designer clothes, and move on to the next celebrity fad without so much as a word of apology to those who have been brutalized, marginalized and infantilized by the wicked schemes of the greedy, unscrupulous woman they have enabled for over a decade.
I’ve seen a documentary with Angelina Jolie as the narrator.
And if I’m right, the story was about Long Pros, too.
I think I saw it a few years ago, and I didn’t even question the correctness of the material. I just thought: “Oh, that’s really horrible.This woman needs to be rescued!”
What happened to Long Pros is really sad, but now that I read the true nature behind this material, I can at least say I feel bewildered.
Typically Angelina Jolie, and typically a product of the pity-industry.
However, I don’t deny these situations exist, and I can’t speak about numbers,
But I feel offended by people who are USING others to impose their own beliefs.
Nevertheless, I’ve become more and more sceptical about all these celebrities trying to help, while they don’t even question their actions.
I saw a video of Ernesto Sirolly on aid in third-world countries.
It’s not linked to prostitution, but I think he can better express what I want to say 😉
‘Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!’
When Thaddeus Russell announced on Twitter that he was going to make an appearance on Henry Rollins’ H2 show 10 Things You Didn’t Know About… concerning little-known truths about the Founding Fathers, I jokingly responded that “He’s a liar!!!!” I wasn’t referring to Russell, but rather to Henry Rollins who in his younger days made this video with the Rollins band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaysTVcounI
In the song, the reason why Rollins’ character has such success with women is that he tells them the lies that they want to hear rather than the truth. The biggest obstacle for sex workers rights advocates is that most women in America don’t want to see the truth about human sexuality even though it is as plain as the nose on their face.
P.S. On YouTube, you’ll also find the Beavis and Butthead segment which showcases “Liar” which is where I first saw the video years ago.
Show me the money.
That’s what I’d like to see. I believe this is all a “get rich” scheme.
It is. And part of Somaly’s racket is funneling slave-labor into her garment industry sponsors’ sweatshops.
It’s the classic snake oil – better actually.
Come up with a non-existent problem … one that pulls at the heartstrings so that few want to question it, for fear of being “heartless” and those few who do are easily painted as “heartless” – or worse.
Ask for gobs of money to correct the problem.
You don’t have to spend a fucking dime on correcting the problem because – IT DOESN’T EXIST in the first place.
You point to the very non-existence of the problem as evidence of how successful you – and your organization are.
But you continue to say that there is much more of the problem “hidden” and your efforts need to continue.
And you keep asking for money.
And we humans keep giving it to you.
I used to laugh … apparently there’s a method that aboriginal people use to catch a monkey. They bore a hole in a tree – and stick a banana in it. Now, the monkey can get his hand into the hole – but he can’t get it out unless he releases the banana.
But the fuckin’ monkey is too stupid to release the banana – cuz he wants it I guess – and he just sits there screaming with his hand stuck in that hole until the natives capture him. But all the while – had he simply released the banana – his hand would have easily come out and he could have run away.
I thought – first time I heard that … “Goddamn – Monkeys are stupid as shit”.
But then I see the way we spend money on these “non-problems” and shovel out BILLIONS to snake-oil salesmen who would be easily exposed to us if we simply did a little research. And yet – we keep giving them money.
And that makes me depressed – because we make that stupid-assed monkey look a fucking EINSTEIN when compared with the shit WE fall for!
What happened to the promoters of the White Slavery panics of the late Victorian era? Anybody know?
The biggest one was the Salvation Army, which is still very much around and still beating the “sex trafficking” drum.
Amusingly, the journalist WT Stead who spearheaded the white slavery panic in Pall Mall Gazette that raised the UK age of consent from 13 to 16, was the first person to be prosecuted under that law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Armstrong_case#Unintended_consequences
Sometimes, there is justice in the world.
Hoist by his own petard
Except…Stead ‘abducted’ the girl in June 1885, and the ‘tabloid’ revelations were published by Stead from July 1885 onwards.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885) was passed in August 1885; I don’t know the date of the Royal Assent, or when it came into force. (It also included, almost as an afterthought, Section 11 which criminalised male homosexuality; it was this provision which led to the prosecution of Oscar Wilde a decade later.)
Stead’s crime was committed before the Act became law; the law seems to have been applied retrospectively, though I’m no expert on this.
But; I have grave reservations about legislation which is applied retrospectively; it seems to reek of persecution.
According to the linked Wikipedia article, Stead was prosecuted for “assault and abduction”. It’s not clear that he was prosecuted under the new act. The accusation’s arguments were that he had deceived the mother (about the work) and not asked the father at all, so he had abducted the girl.
Retroactive (this is given as synomym for retrospective) laws are an abomination because ignorance of the law is no defense (but how are you to know that a new law would be passed?).
It seems like zombie lies can live a long time. How many times do we have to debunk the same set of bogus sex trafficking or sex work statistics? It seems like every week we see the same old things.
Still, if it deprives her of income, at least she won’t be able to promote new lies.
They’ll be back. This sort is common, and though they keep self destructing, there’s always another snake oil preacher ready to take her place. It’s like how there will always be rats in New York City.
And I’m sure Mrs. Jolie will find someone else to save.
One could make the argument (though I won’t) that Angelina, like Mia Farrow before her, is at least putting her money where her mouth is by adopting and educating children from war and poverty zones.
I’m not saying there isn’t a self-aggrandizing motive to it because there probably is.
Perhaps too harsh, I dunno. I do wish these people would self-destruct in a way that doesn’t hurt others.
I have to confess, I have not followed this “Somali Mam” woman. I just looked at her Wiki page – which is my “goto” whenever shit pops up here that I know little about …
I note …
– She’s not sure exactly when she was born.
– Lost track of her family when Pol Pot was terrorizing everyone in Cambodia
– Some dude picked her up and made her his sex slave.
– He got tired of victimizing her so he sold her to a brothel at the age of 14.
– She was then forced to have sex with 5 or 6 guys a day
– They also forced her to marry a stranger
– HE beat and raped her too
– She was forced to watch her friend be viciously murdered
– So she then decided to escape
It appears the WIKI cites only her own claims as evidence that any of this is true. Is there any other corroborating evidence for her life story? Or is this another “leap of faith” we’re expected to make a la Stella Marr?
Here wikipedia entry reads like a hagiography. There’s been some complaints about that.
Funny thing is that I remember when people were trying to ban sweat shops and the concern was that if you closed the sweatshops, people would go back to sex work. I suspect we will reach a new fusionism where we ban sex work AND sweat shops and just pay people in foreign countries to starve and dress funny for the amusement of tourists, this being the only work that the busybodies find acceptable.
In their natural state, all people had a trust fund, according to most undergrads.
I’m hoping that it won’t be long until that becomes true. Imagine how freeing that would be: everybody has a guaranteed income, no matter their luck in the ancestral, geographic, genetic, and temporal lotteries, no matter their employment, health, etc.
Good summary.
Birds of a hue flock together.
Hence, big companies (now, it’s Hilton Intl which will host the SMF staff), stars, or their agents, and public relations officers, prefer fraud to truth.
[…] them. They need not fear violent “rescuers” who invade their workplaces, abduct them, lock them in cages and subject them to brainwashing. They are not the victims of government propaganda intended to […]
It’s good to see truth starting to win out. It takes too long to happen, and then it happens too slowly, but it DOES happen, and it’s happening now.
We need to keep in mind that some of the celebrities who get involved with causes like this probably believe in them, and are involved for the best of motives. Some of them are just out to upgrade their public images, but some of them probably believe that they are helping to save untold numbers from a lifetime of sexual slavery. There’s nothing about being a celebrity which makes one snooker-proof. Is Angelina Jolie a well-meaning woman who wanted to use her celebrity to help others who don’t have the advantages of wealth and fame, but she was snookered, or is she just a heartless self-promoter who, not satisfied to let her body of work keep her in the public mind, shamelessly exploits the very people she knows full and damn well she isn’t helping? I don’t know, but I’m going to admit that I don’t know. I doubt not that there are celebrities in both camps.
When the cause turns out to be bogus, it would be nice if celebrities who fell for it would come clean, and help in exposing the lies they once believed.
A minor nit:
I had to scan that about 3-4 times before I understood it. Part of the problem is that the quoted text seems to be making contradictory points (which it is) but the setup is in your own words. More at
Leaving aside my grammatical/stylistic issues, all this is very good news. I had started paying some attention to the Mam story when it broke that she was a serial liar. That Hollywood types got sucked into her orbit is absolutely not a surprise; they are, as a group, remarkably credulous. The good news is they also appear to have short attention spans, which has consequences for the charities and spouses alike.