Modern-Day Slavery

Somaly Mam, president and founder of The Somaly Mam Foundation, began her work rescuing and rehabilitating survivors of human trafficking in her home country of Cambodia, where she herself suffered as a child sex slave before heroically escaping and where today, at least 30,000 children are enslaved in the sex trade.

The combination of low value placed on girls, and the stigma associated with victims of the sex trade in Southeast Asian culture, along with a booming sex tourism industry, has helped perpetuate the cycle of trafficking and slavery in the region.

The foundation continues to have a strong focus on Cambodia and Southeast Asia in general, funding shelters and direct services for girls who have been victims of human trafficking. We work with AFESIP, the organization that Somaly founded before SMF, to fund shelters in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand that house up to 500 girls and offer them the comprehensive services they need to heal, and to create healthy, sustainable futures for themselves.

All of our programs share an emphasis on the collective voice of the survivors, who participate in every aspect of our work. Survivors who have gone through our rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration programs can choose to join our Voices for Change initiative, which offers them the opportunity to work in the Survivor Services programs doing everything from outreach to teaching classes. VFC members visit the brothels, distributing condoms and performing outreach for victims, including HIV/AIDS education.

Recently, we partnered with the UN Inter-Agency on Human Trafficking to conduct training for Cambodian law enforcement, which was planned, monitored, and taught in part by VFC members.

We continue to explore avenues for survivor empowerment, including a New Business department that is working to put in place new sustainable business opportunities for our survivors, like our Empowerment Line.