{"id":26369,"date":"2014-06-17T07:31:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T12:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=26369"},"modified":"2014-06-17T07:31:36","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T12:31:36","slug":"somaly-mams-icarus-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/06\/17\/somaly-mams-icarus-turn\/","title":{"rendered":"Somaly Mam&#8217;s Icarus turn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <em>Taki&#8217;s Magazine<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/takimag.com\/article\/lying_whores_or_whoring_lies_kathy_shaidle\/print#axzz34tl97MKk\" target=\"_blank\">Kathy Shaidle<\/a> describes the rise and fall of Somaly Mam, who is the most recent fantasist to dupe Westerners about conditions in her home country:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of the last thrills still permitted us normal folks (for now) is getting to watch one of these self-appointed activists and advocates endure an Icarian tumble. Take that recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/2014\/05\/30\/somaly-mam-holy-saint-and-sinner-sex-trafficking-251642.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Newsweek<\/em> expos\u00e9<\/a> of secular saint and \u201csex work\u201d abolitionist Somaly Mam.<\/p>\n<p>No, I\u2019d never heard of her before, either. I didn\u2019t realize how far removed I was from what the authorities have deemed reality until I read that, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/06\/10\/nicholas-kristof-somaly-mam_n_5479576.html\" target=\"_blank\">among other things<\/a>, this woman had been feted by the White House and the State Department, appeared on <em>The Oprah Winfrey Show<\/em>, made the \u201c<em>TIME<\/em> 100\u201d list, and declared one of <em>Glamour<\/em>\u2019s \u201cWomen of the Year.\u201d Plus she\u2019d been named one of the \u201cWomen Who Shake the World\u201d by, er, <em>Newsweek<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Cambodian-born Somaly Mam began making claims she\u2019d been sold into sexual slavery as a youngster. After a daring escape, she dedicated her life to rescuing other girls from the same fate, leading armed raids on brothels, then providing shelter, education, and vocational training to the former captives\u2014with the help of Western donors, many of them celebrities.<\/p>\n<p><em>Aaaaaaannnnnddddd<\/em> \u2026 ? Oh, come on. Guess.<\/p>\n<p>Simon Marks has been investigating Mam for <em>The Cambodia Daily<\/em> (\u201cAll the News Without Fear or Favor\u201d) for years. When <em>Newsweek<\/em> ran his findings in that cover story last month, the rest of the world found out what actual Cambodians and NGO-types <a href=\"http:\/\/thanhniennews.com\/commentaries\/somaly-mam-goes-down-while-nicholas-kristof-pokes-around-27053.html\" target=\"_blank\">have been trying to tell us all this time<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>Mam\u2019s \u201corigin story\u201d is mostly bollocks on stilts.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2014\/05\/28\/heres_why_it_matters_when_a_human_rights_crusader_builds_her_advocacy_on_lies\/\" target=\"_blank\">Her \u201crescues\u201d are more like kidnappings<\/a>, and her statistics about Cambodia\u2019s trafficking rates, exaggerated. She coached non-ex-prostitutes to tell hair-raising tales of rape, torture, and even eye-gouging when pale-faced documentarians came calling. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesundaily.my\/node\/255222\" target=\"_blank\">[I]nstead of a brothel or a massage parlour<\/a>,\u201d Mam\u2019s \u201crescued slaves\u201d ended up \u201cworking for poverty-level wages in unsafe and exploitative conditions in sweatshops.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Taki&#8217;s Magazine, Kathy Shaidle describes the rise and fall of Somaly Mam, who is the most recent fantasist to dupe Westerners about conditions in her home country: One of the last thrills still permitted us normal folks (for now) is getting to watch one of these self-appointed activists and advocates endure an Icarian tumble. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,28],"tags":[978,112,520,605,43],"class_list":["post-26369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-media","tag-cambodia","tag-organizedcrime","tag-prostitution","tag-slavery","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6Rj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26370,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26369\/revisions\/26370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}