A large number of organizations…[use] children to raise funds…the truth is distorted or the stories invented to attract more compassion and money. The impact on the lives of these children is terrible: If they come from an abusive situation, such a process re-traumatizes them and in any case it stigmatizes them forever. – Sébastien Marot
It’s starting. “Sex trafficking” hysteria has run its course, and we’re now beginning to see the signs of its inevitable implosion. Two and a half years ago in “Crystal Ball” I wrote,
…If things run according to form, we can predict that over the next three years skepticism about “trafficking” (especially in regard to its conflation with sex work) will slowly increase, and by about 2015 it will be possible for a major media outlet to publish articles critical of both the statistics and the very concept. By 2017 public funding for anti-sex worker hate groups will begin to dry up, and by 2019 or 2020 we should expect it to virtually disappear from public discourse except for a wave of books and documentaries by “experts” who couldn’t be bothered to speak out against it while it was going on but are happy to make a quick buck from it after it’s safely over…
In the summer after that was published several UN agencies came out in support of decriminalization, and a number of human rights organizations followed; I also began to chronicle the increasing absurdity of “trafficking” claims. Then last year, articles which were openly skeptical of the myth began to appear here and there, and ever-larger numbers of academics and journalists began to attack the fake statistics and the Swedish model so beloved of “trafficking” fetishists. This past January the “gypsy whores” myth began to fall apart, and soon articles challenging the official narrative (including some by sex workers) began to proliferate.
But perhaps the biggest blow yet came last Wednesday: Simon Marks, who has been investigating rescue industry icon Somaly Mam for several years, published a full-length expose in the current issue of Newsweek. Most of the story is not new; I’ve reported on Marks’ findings (and those of others) since the autumn of 2011, but as I explained in “Crumbling House”, neither the mainstream American press nor any of Mam’s many celebrity enablers seemed interested. The Newsweek story, however, seems to have changed that; many US journalists who ignored or overlooked Mam’s lies while they were only being reported in blogs and foreign newspapers have now awakened to her incredible career of deceit. And while regular readers already know about the fake “trafficking victims” and the daughter who was supposedly kidnapped and gang-raped by traffickers in retaliation for Mam’s activism (but actually just ran away with her boyfriend), the new article does contain one bombshell. In November I reported that Mam’s ex-husband had cast doubt on her own claims of being “trafficked”, saying, “She was a prostitute. Was she abused? Yes. Was she trafficked? I doubt it. No one has proof.” But Marks now has much more:
…In her autobiography, Mam tells how “Grandfather” turned her at a very young age into his domestic slave. He would gamble and drink, and when he came home, he sometimes beat her until she bled. He eventually sold her as a virgin to a Chinese merchant and then forced her to marry a violent soldier when she was just 14. She was later sold to a brothel in Phnom Penh, where she [claims she was] tortured with electrodes hooked up to a car battery…
Interviews with Mam’s childhood acquaintances, teachers and local officials in the village where she grew up contradict important, lurid details in her autobiography. Many of the villagers in Thloc Chhroy say they never met or even saw Mam’s cruel “Grandfather,” the rich Chinese merchant who allegedly raped her or the violent soldier she says she was forced to marry. Orn Hok, a former commune chief, remembers well the day Mam arrived in the village, noting, “Somaly came here with her parents. She is a daughter of Mam Khon and Pen Navy.” Pen Chhun Heng, now in her 70s, says she is a cousin of Mam’s mother and rejects the notion that Mam was adopted or that she was raised (or kept) by “Grandfather.” Sam Nareth, a childhood friend of Mam’s, says Mam first attended school in the village in 1981 and remained there until she got her high school diploma. “She finished secondary school in 1987, and Somaly and I went to sit the teachers exam in Kompong Cham together.” Thou Soy, who was the director of Khchao High School in Thloc Chhroy, distinctly remembers Mam attending classes between 1981 and 1987, as does the current commune chief, Thorng Ruon, and his two predecessors. Mam was well-known and popular in their small village, a happy, pretty girl with pigtails.
Not even Mam can keep the story straight. In February 2012, while speaking at the White House, she said she was sold into slavery at age 9 or 10 and spent a decade inside a brothel. On The Tyra Banks Show, she said it was four or five years in the brothel. Her book says she was trafficked when she was “about 16 years old”…
There’s also additional information about the horrible way she treats her employees, but even more important are passages like this:
…Experts in sex trafficking say that…the scale and dynamics of the situation are often misunderstood, in part because of lurid, sensationalistic stories such as those told by Mam and her “girls”…In an interview for Euronews in 2012, Mam said girls as young as 3 are being held in Cambodian brothels. Experts in the field say that is almost unheard-of. Patrick Stayton, who formerly ran the…International Justice Mission (IJM) in Cambodia, says, “They may have had a supply of younger girls between the age of 14 and 17…We’ve never seen prepubescent girls, or very, very rarely”…Thomas Steinfatt, a professor of statistics at the University of Miami, has done several reports on sex trafficking for the U.N…he estimated there were no more than 1,058 victims of trafficking in Cambodia and has said the situation has improved markedly since then. The number of children, both those observed as sex workers and those mentioned by management or…sex workers…was 127…
The comments, including many from other rescue industry folks who’ve known about this for years but were afraid to speak up against Somaly the rock star, are also very interesting; some are from a woman who calls herself “Angel” but appears to be either Somaly herself or a fanatically-loyal follower, dismissing all the evidence as lies against her fallen hero. Nicholas Kristof, who has borrowed much of his anti-whore propaganda from Mam, has not yet made a statement; I’ll be surprised if he does, because like all rats he will desert a sinking ship. But while Kristof and others like him will move on to new crusades as this one goes under, the days of the victim pimps who directly profit from “sex trafficking” hysteria are numbered. Somaly Mam is only the first of the big names to crash; look for many new scandals and exposes to follow in the next two years. But even after they’re all gone, it will take the better part of a generation to clean up the havoc they’ve wrought and to try to salvage the lives they’ve destroyed for their own profit, political advantage and self-aggrandizement.
Good for you Maggie. The truth about everything is eventually revealed…
We’ll see if this grows legs … Newsweek was sold for ONE DOLLAR and isn’t really considered the major source of news it once was. That’s a well written article and I hope other rags will pick up on it and amplify the message.
However, as with all “religions” … acceptance of proof in this case means a lot of people have to wake up and accept the fact that they got “chumped” … and unfortunately, the human instinct is to “dig in” and “lash out” at those holding proof counter to their “assumptions”.
Never thought I’d see the day. You know I’m waiting for to see the next strategies. Actually the demonization of men will pick up steam from what I know of a few NGO’s.
What was the goal of these people? Except for shoving their beliefs on other people, I mean?
follow the money. She dupes rich westerners who will jump at the opportunity to do “something” to help those poor enslaved children. So she can then in turn sell them to the sweatshop owners who have also been bankrolling her extravagant lifestyle
Exactly! And unfortunately it’s not only her – what about the Demi and Ashton Foundation who shouted that real men don’t buy girls (yes, girls again, always the children) and then … divorced or something. How much money did they get flowing in by spreading lies and playing the child card? And Mira Sorvino and Ricky Martin and all the other “save our children from sex slavery” celebrities? I really hope Maggie is a right Sybil and these ridiculous people and organisations are exposed for what they really are – hypocritical, manipulative money-lovers! I work for an anti-trafficking NGO which respects and promotes sex workers rights and although we are famous in Europe we don’t have celebrity endorsements and millions of Euros from conservative groups, since these are apparently meant not for real anti-trafficking work but for those who mindlessly repeat that it’s for the children.. It disgusts me!
Thanks for this Maggie!
“…even after they’re all gone, it will take the better part of a generation to clean up the havoc they’ve wrought and to try to salvage the lives they’ve destroyed for their own profit, political advantage and self-aggrandizement.” What I was thinking is that we haven’t unraveled and of the damages of the last trafficking moral panic from the 19th and early 20th centuries. I see our movement developing and growing, but I haven’t seen a path to move from total criminalization to decriminalization.
I assume we can create one, and from what I read there were ‘legalization’ efforts that took place in response to the moral panic. I think finding a transitional process and the structure to sustain a decrim model is a good direction. Court challenges are always crucial…although the court seems to mirror public opinion in social issues, or protect the powers-that-be so it can be a long haul there as well.
I don’t recall if New Zealand had the abolitionist model prior to decriminalization, or not?
I do see (or maybe wishful thinking) potential sex workers rights support momentum from within the disenchanted from anti-trafficking movement too. I wonder what you are thinking about how we will “clean up the havoc.”
“Tortured with electrodes hooked up to a car battery”? That is one thing that definitely does not work. A car battery gives you 12V. If you wet your fingers before touching the poles and pay careful attention, you get a very light tingly sensation, but that is it. Even a truck battery (expensive, large) only gives you 24V, which gives a bit more tingling, but well below pain. To get an actual shock, you need something like 100V or more. A teaser is at 10’000V or more.
This is complete BS, which she probably took from some video where they produced sparks with a car battery. The problem is, these are not electrical sparks, these are small iron particles superheated by the current a car battery can deliver into low resistance objects (humans are high-resistance, so no current that matters without higher voltages).
That’s the issue. If we want a durable path to decriminalization – we have to win public support. We have to convince people that the world isn’t going to end if we decriminalize. Winning court decisions makes us “feel good” – but it doesn’t provide lasting satisfaction. Abortionists have won in the courts repeatedly and yet …
There is only one abortion clinic in Mississippi – and one doctor that they have to fly in from out of state. Courts have consistently ruled that cops can be video-taped while performing their duties – yet cops still ROUTINELY arrest those they catch doing it. And probably the most infamous example I can think of … is that Blacks in the South were unable to really get equality – even though the courts ruled in their favor – until Southerners were “swayed” and felt they did not hold the moral high-ground on segregation. That’s what ended it … it was the people of the South who got tired of the negative images of segregation.
You have to win hearts and minds – or make them apathetic to opposing you.
The courts can and will go a bit ahead of public opinion, but not all that much – they can make 45-55 into a win, but not 20-80.
magna est veritas et praevalebit
As ever, the US is five to 10 years ahead of opinion/belief in Ireland.
I think you’re being a bit generous there! 😛
My favourite Styx song. Hope your tour goes well, the wife and I may be there in NY
And here is hopefully the last thing we will ever hear about that lying victim pimp: http://www.somaly.org/media/press/somaly-mams-resignation
This is only the tip of the iceberg of the fraud surrounding the sex trafficking movement. The definition of sex trafficking has expanded so much and taken such a unique form that children victimized by prostitution have been left behind and other children have been identified as sex trafficking victims and are humiliated by the misrepresentation – more to come…
Dr. Lee, I am interested in this idea: “…children victimized by prostitution have been left behind and other children have been identified as sex trafficking victims..” Can you explain who comprises that latter group?
Nice to hear from you after all these years. The gangs who have taken over the neighborhoods and local prostitution of children often have the girls commit residential burglaries, petty theft, small drug deals and some prostitution – Most of these girls are sexually exploited by the gangs – passed around – but this is not “prostitution” – these human trafficking organizations in the courts and in the juvenile halls identify these girls as sex trafficking victims and the girls are screaming “I’ve never done anything like that” – I was recently told some gang members who passed around a girl is being prosecuted for sex trafficking – the sexual exploitation of children, boys, girls or transgender youth is horrible but it should not all be thrown in the barrel with prostitution. What happened to “rape” “child molestation” etc? The children who live in our home have been forced, enticed, coerced into prostitution and they don’t even recognize the term sex trafficking – one of our residents even wrote a high school paper on sex trafficking and when she later entered prostitution via a pimp – she didn’t recognize any similarity. Many of the children who have been enticed into prostitution also talk about their willing participation and I believe the pimp/trafficker should still be prosecuted under the “enticement” section of the code. But what is happening now is that agencies who call our hotline ask “Is she a prostitute or a sex trafficking victim?” If the child says she is a prostitute we are back at ground zero in being able to access services – just the other day one agency refused to allow a child in their program because she would not admit to involvement with a pimp – so she was not considered a trafficking victim. There is no consistency in these definitions so in one case a child may be defined as a sex trafficking victim and a prostitute in another. Please email me – I would love to know your thoughts.
Dr Lois Lee, I have done research and found that a quote from you was misrepresented, obfuscating a sex worker voice on a matter, and promulgated by the anti-traffickers. The forensics showed this came from Hughes et al and CATW. It was then picked up by a slew of NGOs.
Good to see you here!
Dear theserenitysisters – please tell me more – you may email me at LLee@childrenofthenight.org
I just sent you and Maggie 6 pages of documentation. I am more than willing to contact any of the parties who quoted you erroneously.
Thanks Mary. I have sent you my quotes – and the age of entering prostitution cannot be attributed to me – there are no studies.
[…] Continuing To Crumble […]
“…If things run according to form, we can predict that over the next three years skepticism about “trafficking” (especially in regard to its conflation with sex work) will slowly increase, and by about 2015 it will be possible for a major media outlet to publish articles critical of both the statistics and the very concept. By 2017 public funding for anti-sex worker hate groups will begin to dry up, and by 2019 or 2020 we should expect it to virtually disappear from public discourse except for a wave of books and documentaries by “experts” who couldn’t be bothered to speak out against it while it was going on but are happy to make a quick buck from it after it’s safely over…”
I just hope this cycle isn’t doomed to repeat ad infinitum. After the antiporn movement was thoroughly trounced in the 80s ‘sex wars’, Women Against Pornography basically rebranded itself as CATW, focused on the more stigmatized part of the sex industry, prostitution, lobbying hard in places like the UN, as well as peripheral countries where their ideology still had some purchase, notably Sweden. All the while, the “sex positive” movement declared premature victory and moved on to other things, and in some cases, became caricatures of themselves. This made for a strong resurgence of the anti-sex movement in both its ‘feminist’ and religious right (albeit, increasingly “religious left”) subsets, something that hardly anybody on the cultural liberal side saw coming or was prepared for. These people are definitely playing the long game, and also leave plenty of bad legislation in their wake that will take years to undo. Hopefully there will be greater vigilance this time once the antis seem down for the count.
OVER TIME INTELLIGENCE WILL PREVAIL
While the fraudulent Mam is exposed, there is also the reverse – a censure of an icon’s sex worker past, and NOT by her but by those who don’t want to think about it – Consider the case of Maya Angelou, R.I. P.
http://titsandsass.com/the-erasure-of-maya-angelou/
I had no idea. It gives me a pretty famous name to pull out the time time somebody wants to brandish the old “whores are stupid” canard.
[…] is due to the efforts of sex workers ourselves; some is due to the diligent efforts of allies and ethical journalists; some is due to the stupidity and hubris of the police; and some is simply the natural result of […]