One of the world’s leading anti-sex slavery activists got bounced from her own foundation because her heartbreaking tale of being sold into child prostitution and years of abuse fell apart.
Somaly Mam had become the pretty, glamorous face of the anti-sex trafficking movement, courting celebrities and world political leaders.
The Cambodian claimed she was an orphan, sold into sexual slavery and repeatedly raped and abused for years. She only worked up the courage to escape after seeing a friend killed in front of her.
But over the past several years, Mam’s life story has been slowly picked apart by childhood friends, culminating in this week’s stunning ouster.
“Effective immediately, Somaly Mam has resigned from the Somaly Mam Foundation,” the anti-sex slavery group tweeted.
The foundation said it hired US-based law firm Goodwin Procter LLP in March to check out the life story of Mam and her fellow activist and protege, Long Pross.
It’s been reported for years that Pross had been rescued by Mam’s group, ending years of sexual enslavement at a Cambodian brothel.
While not revealing any details of this internal probe, Somaly Mam Foundation executive director Gina Reiss-Wilchins said both women are no longer affiliated with the group.
Mam has rubbed elbows with some of the world’s best-known celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, Susan Sarandon, Katie Couric and Queen Latifah.
Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Mam’s charity in 2012, meeting girls and young women rescued from sexual slavery.
But friends of Mam said she grew up with both parents, graduated from high school and led a happy, comfortable childhood.
Mam has always struggled to keep her story straight, according to a front-page exposé by Newsweek magazine this week.
During a White House visit in February 2012, Mam she said was sold into slavery at age 9 or 10. That contradicted an interview Mam gave to “The Tyra Banks Show,” claiming she was 4 or 5 when her sexual enslavement began, according to Newsweek.
In her book, “The Road of Lost Innocence,” Mam said she was trafficked when she was “about 16 years old.”
The 40-something Mam — whose precise age has never been stated — always knew when cameras were rolling, according to a psychologist who did volunteer work for Mam’s Cambodian charity AFESIP.
“[With donors], she’s very polished and very on and very charming … exceedingly charming,” the whistle-blower told Newsweek.
“And when people are not there, she can be tyrannical; she’s moody, she’s erratic, she’s entitled.”
Do you remember the lying author of I, Rigroberta Menchu
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