A Cambodian human rights activist said that she does not know much about the miserable situation facing Korean sex workers. “However, most of all, we should examine why they do that job?” said Somaly Mam, the founder of the Somaly Mam Foundation, in an interview in Seoul.
Mam, 41, was chosen as winner of the POSCO TJ Park Science Prize in the category of community development and philanthropy for her support of victims of human trafficking. Winners each received 200 million won in prize money at the award ceremony held in Seoul, Wednesday. The foundation, named after the late POSCO founder Park Tae-joon, has awarded the annual prizes since 2006.
Man said, “When we look at the inside of those sex workers, I found that they suffer from trauma.”
She was refuting the allegations that prostitution is among jobs from which people can select freely.
Mom was named by the British Guardian newspaper as one of 100 women activists in the world in 2011. Two years earlier, she was included in the Time magazine’s most influential 100 persons of the world.
She said, “I have received various awards from countries across the world. But it is the first time for me to be honored in Asia. It surprised me and makes me happy.”
Her teenage life was miserable. While living in a relative’s house, she was taken to a red-light district in exchange for money at the age of 12. She suffered from rape, beating and electric torture for 10 years until she fled in 1993. “I was already dead when I was raped first there,” she recalled.
She said that Cambodia, a small country, is a hotbed for “sex slaves.” “Human trafficking is rampant there. Cambodia is where give-and-take of human trafficking with neighboring countries, including Vietnam, is brisk.”
Mam, founder of the Acting for Women in Distressing Situations, an NGO, in 1996, has so far rescued about 7,000 sex slaves in Laos and Vietnam as well as Cambodia.
She said a large number of North Korean women, who fled the impoverished country, have been taken to rural Chinese areas in return for money. Sometimes, she added, they are taken to Cambodia.