Blog Post #7

In the last portion of the book, the mood changes. The majority of the book is about all the hardships Solmay has encountered. Speaking for my self, during the duration of most of the book I found myself wanting nothing more than to personally help Solmay in any way she needed. In the last section, she gives you the opportunity to do just that. She explains how she founded Acting for Women in Distressing Situations, a charity to help get young women and girls out of brothels. At first, the charity does not go well. She does not have much funding, and has a hard time getting her story and the story of others like her out. When she is interviewed by journalists, they never site her organization, so it receives very little press. Finally, she is approached by an American journalists who gives her the publicity she needs. Funding remains considerably scarce, but increases nonetheless. She is able to purchase a small amount of land out side of Phem Phong and builds a house of it for girls who have been rescued from brothels. Her mother and sister work as caretakers for the girls. The house becomes full of girls quickly, and soon cannot fit everybody. As the center grows, so does word of her worth. Brothel owners and pimps hear about it, and threaten her life on multiple occasions. They stalk her, her husband, and her children. Solmay then wins the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in the presence of Queen Sofia of Spain. She wins a lot of prize money, and her cause becomes even more well known. With this money, she is able to buy property in her home town, and build another refugee center. At this center, the girls are able to go to school and learn how to sew so they can begin respectable careers. After she raids a brothel full of extremely powerful men, they kidnap her child in retaliation. Thankfully she recovers her daughter before she could be trafficked. Despite all of the obstacles she faces, she continues to run the organization, and to this day it is growing and expanding.

Although I have said it in previous posts, it is worth repeating; Solmay is an amazing woman. You would think after all she has encountered that she would run from Cambodia the second she could, but instead, she chooses to endanger her life for the aid of others. Every penny she gets she puts towards helping girls rescued from brothels. She does not turn down any girl, no matter how sick or damaged they may be. She has a huge, huge heart. Her well being is the least of her concerns. She has helped countless girls all over the world, and I'm saved an equal amount of lives. I wish there was somehting I could do to help, past just donating money. I looked into it and all of the hands on work is done on location in the various countries her rescue centers are. I wish there was an office in Boston or somewhere near by in which I could contribute.

Blog Entry #6

The next one hundred pages of my book were very different than the first 100. In the first 100, she is basically telling her story. She recounts memorable events in her life, and describes them very vividly. Around the 100 page mark, the protagonist and author Solmay meets Piere. Piere is a french man visiting Cambodia who rescues from the brothel. After she begins a relationship with him, she travels to Paris with him, where she earns a considerable amount of money working modest jobs like a hotel maid and waitress. They stay in Paris for a couple of years then return back to Cambodia with a sizable amount of money. From here, her career as an activist begins. Piere is a doctor, and Somlay becomes a nurse at his clinic. She first starts reaching out to oppressed girls in brothels by bringing them condoms and pamphlets on how to prevent STDs like AIDs. She then begins taking girls from the brothels who seem to be in dire condition and bringing them to the clinic for a couple of days to heal their various wounds and diseases, and give them hope that there is a way out of being a prostitute. Although for the most part she has no choice but to return the girls to their brothels, she begins to take a few into her own home. She realizes the need for a shelter and home for girls like this to escape to, and begins the Acting for Women in Distressing Situations foundation. She begins with very little money, and very little support. But, gradually, her foundation takes off. Her first course of action is staging raids on brothels and releasing all of the women there. This is a very difficult task but brothels are run and protected by many corrupt government officials, and policemen. After much toil, she finds a sympathetic policemen who helps her begin her raids. Herself, her husband, and a small band of police officers enter countless brothels and free the women there. But, she soon realizes they have no where to go and will probably end up being sold right back into prostitution. With various small donations, she is able to purchase a small piece of land that borders the Phem Phong. The construction of a relief center begins.

I am currently reading about the formation of her first relief center. All the work Solmay does is amazing. She is so incredibly brave. She is up against some of the most powerful, dangerous men in the country, but is not daunted nor concerned about her own health at all. She completely puts herself aside in attempt to help others. Even though she herself is not super rich, she gives all the money she possibly has to helping young girls she have never met before.

Blog Post #5

I am volunteering at planned parenthood. With the snow days and midterms, I have not had the opportunity to go in yet. I have been in touch with them and set up a day to go in and discuss possibilities and options. As of now, I am not sure what exactly I will be doing there, but I predict it to be something involved with paperwork or intake. I am excited to get started and help in a charitable cause. In the book I am reading, The Road of Lost Innocence, birth control and std prevention is unheard of and safe sex is never practiced. Just from simply reading it, I can see the importance of contraceptives, and I think working at planned parenthood will definitely strengthen that knowledge.

Blog Entry #4

So far, my book is incredible. Prior to reading it myself, I read positive reviews of it online and a lot of my classmates had good things to say about it. But, it has already surpassed my expectations. My book is the story of a girl born and raised in Cambodia. At a very young age, her parents left her for a faraway village and she had the responsibility of taking care of herself. She starts off homeless, but is taken in by a nice man who lives in her village. At around the age of 7, a man she calls her "grandfather" comes and takes her to Thlok Chhrov, a village full of people who regard her own heritage, Phnong, as savage. She is treated accordingly, and becomes a slave, frequently beaten and abused. Her grandfather sells her virginity to repay his debts, and she is violently raped by a Chinese man from the village. This is her first experience with rape, but most certainly not her last. A local school teacher, Mam Khon recognizes her dire situation, and takes her in to live with them. She becomes a student at his school and it seems as if she has finally gotten a stable home. But, after living in the village for only a couple of years, grandfather sells her into prostitution to pay off money he owes people from excessive gambling. She is taken into the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Pen to a brothel run by a woman known as Aunty Peuve. Here she stays for upwards of a year, being raped and beaten by 10-15 clients daily. She begins to feel like complete garbage and a useless human being. She sees no end to her miserable existance until she meets Piere (ironically enough in the brothel) a french man who takes interest in her and rescues her from the brothel. Unlike many of the foreigners, he speaks her language of Khmer, and she feels very connected to him. She moves in with him and they begin a romance. In his presence, she feels like an actual human being.

Somaly Mam's recounts of her life are moving. She has been through an incredible amount. I cannot even fathom being put in the situations she was put in, and yet she dealt with them. She is one of the bravest and strongest woman I have ever encountered. Her life has been so full of misfortune that I have no idea what motivation she could ever have to live or to keep hope, but she did. She persisted, and found a light at the end of the tunnel.

Not only am I amazed by Somaly's story, but in the process of telling her own, she tells the story of others. I have learned so much about the sex trade business that I previously had no clue about. She talks about how thousands of girls are forced into brothels and will stay there their entire lives, and how girls are considered as merchandise. If a mother girls birth to a girl, it can be a happy occasion because then their bodies can be sold to pay off debts. It is simply unbelievable. In Cambodia, many men think having sex with a virgin will rid them of the AIDs virus, so a girls virginity is a valuable thing. After a girls virginity is sold, she will be sewed up and sold as a virgin 3 or 4 more times. This practice starts with girls around the age of 7. Girls are no more then an object to be had.

Books I chose

The books I chose were The Road to Lost Innocence and Half of the Sky.  The Road to Lost Innocence is a memoir of a young Cambodian girl who was kidnapped and forced into sex trafficking for a good portion of her life. Half of the Sky is a compilation of stories from all different women who have experience sex trafficking. They are of all different ages, races, and locations. I chose these two books because they are perfect for what I am researching. From these books, I will get multiple and diverse perspectives on sex slavery and unquestionably learn some things I could not get from formal or factual articles.

Books in public library

http://library.minlib.net/search~S1?/X(Not%20for%20sale)&searchscope=1&SORT=D&m=a/X(Not%20for%20sale)&searchscope=1&SORT=D&m=a&SUBKEY=(Not%20for%20sale)/1%2C155%2C155%2CB/frameset&FF=X(Not%20for%20sale)&searchscope=1&SORT=D&m=a&3%2C3%2C

http://library.minlib.net/search~S1?/Xlost+innocence&searchscope=1&SORT=DZ/Xlost+innocence&searchscope=1&SORT=DZ&extended=0&SUBKEY=lost%20innocence/1%2C109%2C109%2CB/frameset&FF=Xlost+innocence&searchscope=1&SORT=DZ&3%2C3%2C

Beginning Research Reflection

        Thankfully, I have had no personal experiences that dictated my interest in teenage sex trafficking. I take interest in it because it is a topic I find very relevant to not only myself, but in society. Being a teenage girl, I know the stories I will be reading and researching will be about women close in age to me. Although not an avid news watcher, the occasional time I do flip on Fox, I have seen countless stories about teenage girls being raped, and sexually abused. Now a days, it seems to be everywhere. Although I live a sheltered life in a safe neighborhood, and I am in no way disillusioned and am well are that by simply being female, I am at risk to become victim to such crimes.
        Like I mentioned before, the extent of my knowledge does not span past what I have seen on television. I have watched documentaries about women kidnapped and forced into trafficking, and have seen stories about it on the news. But, I have never read an article, or investigated in depth about a certain story. I know such crimes typically happen in poor neighborhoods, and the girls who are subjected to it usually end up brainwashed and helpless, and don't know how to escape.
        Since the knowledge I have of my topic is very superficial, I have a lot I want to know. I only know about select stories, and do not know about sex trafficking as whole. When I say this, I mean I have zero information on statistics and the whys and the hows of it. Also, I am very interested to know what kind of person subjects a female to this. After typing that sentence, I realized I also want the definition of "this." Although sex trafficking seems fairly self explanatory, I have no doubt that there are aspects of the practice that I have no clue about. It is a business? Do people do it to make money?
       After reading some of the articles I found, I was frankly disturbed. It is difficult to think that these girls were just normal girls until they were kidnapped. It could have been anybody, including my best friends, even my twin sister. I discovered that is difficult to simply define sex trafficking, because it is different in nearly every scenario. Although most include brutal rape, I was extremely shocked to discover that some women willing enter the sex trade. Of course, this immediately left me wondering why anybody would ever do that. I read that in some cases women are released after a couple of months, and in others, they stay captured for years on end. One of the more interesting facts I came upon was that a ton of sex trafficking happens in the truck driver communities. Truck drivers park their trucks at the truck stops, usually gas stations, and women are brought to their truck, and sold to them for the night.