Easy Virtue, False Charity: Somaly Mam, Tyra Banks, Oprah & Susan Sarandon.

we start this video directly quoting the
journalist Simon Marx to my knowledge in the year 2020 he's no longer in Cambodia he's now living in Ethiopia covering the elections there or perhaps I might say he's covering the lack of elections their quote in 2009 Nicholas Kristof wrote in The New York Times about a girl named long crawl who had finally summon the strength to tell her stunning story of sexual slavery he reported that a woman had kidnapped crow and sold her to a brothel where she was beaten tortured with electric wires forced to endure two crude abortions and had an eye gouged out with a piece of metal by an angry pimp Pro Christophe said was rescued by mom and became part of her valiant group of former trafficking victims fighting for a world free of sexual slavery Pro also told her disturbing story on Oprah and appeared on PBS so on and so forth equally hard to believe is the fact that pros family neighbors and medical records all tell a different story dr. Paul Cohen said that he performed surgery on Pro when she was just 13 after her parents brought in hospital with a non malignant tumor covering her right eye photographs in her medical records clearly show the young girl's eye before and after the surgery so how did she come to be one of some alley moms girls T Sarah bong director of Cambodia's Takeo eye hospital back then says his staff contacted a fib to see if they could admit Pro to one of their vocational training programs another of moms biggest stars was Mia act who as a teenager gave me chilling performance on French television in 1998 describing how she had been sold to a brothel and held against her will as a sex slave late last year Mia rat finally confessed that her story was fabricated and carefully rehearsed for cameras under a man's instruction and only after she was chosen from group of girls had been put through an audition now in her early 30s and living a modest life on the outskirts of Phnom Penh rat says she reluctantly allowed herself to be depicted as a child prostitute Somali said that if we wanted to help other women I had to do the interview very well as well as being accused of fabricating her own story Somali mom has been accused of coaching victims in a facade scare to fabricate their stories to attract attention and ultimately more funding I then force a girl to say anything my story it is enough to cover all of the story one girl at the center of the controversy is long pro she told international media she was sold into prostitution and that she lost her eye when a pimp gouged it out to find out for ourselves how long Pro lost her eye we traveled to her home village about five hours southeast of Phnom Penh local villagers remember her will she had a bad eye and she didn't like to go outside of her house he gradually grew bigger and bigger and then she never left the house her father didn't know where to take her for treatment that's why the Charles stayed in a village for a long time down the dirt-track long pros parents are somewhat bemused by the interest in their daughter but a father confirms she had a problem with her eye some lonely young man then we didn't know much about the disease because it was so unusual I don't know why her I went like that she was just a child and we were busy making our living but her eye gradually grew bigger and bigger well we were very poor at the time and then the NGO helped us looked after us with the operation and food also back in pnom pain we meet a former apposite employee she says she arranged with the doctors at the hospital where long pro had her tumor removed to bring her to an apposite shelter she doesn't want to be identified for fear of reprisal momentum drum floor now iam she was not a victim of the bra tells her I was caused by a disease I know this because the hospital told me face to face this woman says she worked for a person for 14 years until she was laid off when the Somali mam foundation closed there wasn't any story like long cross so they create the reality is it didn't happen I mean it had a very negative impact it affected the child's reputation and a reputation of the child's family it was done for personal benefit with no regard for another human being if she was a traumatized person just a Cambodian person who was just running a not-so-good organization that'd be one thing but she was an internationally acclaimed human rights activist who was getting millions of dollars to help women assets budget was more than a million dollars a year with around $700,000 in funding plus Somali moms a hundred and twenty five thousand dollar salary coming from the Somali man found I saw Tommy at Manomet where the question is who was in charge of the food the person was Somalis mother so if a mother was in charge of cooking when was the foot of poor quality and not enough she's also asking questions about where the rest of our subs budget went hiking I know Somali owns 10,000 square meters of land in summary she bought a lot of land in Pilon province and she bought a lot of properties in Phnom Penh and the staff members surrounding her all her relatives and every one of them now owned houses the question is where did those people make their money I don't know if you look at their salaries they probably couldn't afford that this is not the first time after supplies been suspected of misappropriation in the mid-2000s a Spanish donor organization Ana's VAD had growing concerns about the NGOs accounting practices were not enough invoices to account to the amounts that they were receiving from Ana spot and secondly some of the invoices were kind of like you know repeat it you know they were like two copies of the same invoices I mean in the end it really turned out to be that it has been some sort of fortunate because we could also see that when we visited the projects you could not really see the impact now you may wonder what sort of person tells such terrible lies what sort of person shamelessly profits from lying in this way in politics more often than not when you find people in positions of power who have committed atrocities or carried on such immoral acts they are people who are already accustomed to making excuses for others in positions of authority who have indulged in similar transgressions of the moral code or they may be people who convinced themselves that they're living in a society where everyone around them is engaged in much the same sort of in morale she was a quotation from her ex-husband Somali mom's ex-husband Pierre Lacroix why are you speaking out now did you be where asked quote I kept silent so far because I really do not think this debate over Somalis lies is of interest when you work in this world you know fabricated stories are used by everyone to get fun there's the mentality everyone else is getting rich telling these guys let's so why not me too why not us also why shouldn't we jump on yeah well if you don't have an answer to that question maybe you should not be working in the nonprofit and charity sector in Cambodia if you should be working in that sector anywhere on planet earth what a despicable attitude but here we see how powerful that tendency to self-justification really can be and you know what I lived in Cambodia I worked in the nonprofit sector I know I you know if I'd wanted to make those excuses of myself you know any conceivable sin you might want to justify you can look around and if you're looking carefully enough you can say well it seems like everyone else is doing it no there are people who are standing up and saying not me and you could be one of those or you can be like Pierre here and make excuses for it get your own hands dirty and fill up your own bank account the same time too anyway we continue as he tries to now present himself as the hero quote but I received death threats from Somali and her entourage telling me not to speak I do it for my children for the truth to be restored and to denounce the logic of a failing system praising quote development close quote wow you really turned that one around you should give press straight corsets up to answer tough questions to the press Donald Trump never handles a barbed question this well like yes well he doesn't think these lies are of any interest and everyone else is doing it anyway but really he's the victim because he's received death threats and what he's doing now is quite heroic yes hmm applause quote moreover I believe Newsweek and maryclaire are just arguing about minor problem I do not understand why journalists are sticking to the fact that Somali lied about her origins who cares at sex slavery and still with me is actress and after this Susan Sarandon and a woman at the forefront of the battle against sex slavery and human trafficking Somali so I know that you had a really difficult childhood Somali can you walk us through that what we need to know is as the director of one of the most well known NGOs fighting against sexual trafficking how how honestly fairly and legally did some Holly Act when you are an icon and an NGO director people expect you to act with the utmost probity from what was published in Spain last year there were mismanagement and sexual abuse allegations than a South shelter in 2006 to me this would be the real issue to investigate yes it's always easy to find real issues to investigate what you're trying to say is that your own a personal fortune that of your ex-wife and that of your daughter I believe that's really of no interest at all