Cambodian sex slavery activist quits US foundation

A Cambodian woman internationally recognised for her work against sexual slavery has resigned from the foundation she helped create following reports that she distorted parts of her own history.
Somaly Mam's memoir, "The Road of Lost Innocence," said she was abused and sold into prostitution as a child, one of several claims now being questioned
She received US government funding for some of her early work, as well corporate sponsorship and backing from celebrities, including actress Susan Sarandon and Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg.
The website of her New York-based Somaly Mam Foundation lists cosmetics company Estee Lauder, finance firm Goldman Sachs and Hilton hotels as corporate sponsors. Among the journalists who wrote about her efforts was New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

A statement issued yesterday by the foundation's executive-director, Gina Reiss-Wilchins, said Mam's resignation was accepted after the group was presented with the findings of a two-month investigation it had commissioned from a California-based law firm, Goodwin Procter. Details of the findings were not released.
Mam could not be reached for comment. Calls to her phone number in Cambodia went unanswered today and her office in Cambodia said it did not know where she was.

"While we are extremely saddened by this news, we remain grateful to Somaly's work over the past two decades and for helping to build a foundation that has served thousands of women and girls, and has raised critical awareness of the nearly 21 million individuals who are currently enslaved today," Reiss-Wilchins said in the statement, which was posted on the foundation's website.

Mam's resignation followed a cover story in Newsweek about long-questioned aspects of her story. In Cambodia, questions had been raised for several years, especially by the newspaper The Cambodia Daily.
Among the claims that had raised doubts were that her daughter had been kidnapped by traffickers seeking revenge on her, and that eight girls who had been seized from one of her group's refuges in Cambodia in 2004 were murdered by the army there.