The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine

by Somaly Mam

Book Overview

After being sold into sexual slavery by her grandfather at the age of 12, Mam suffered the brutality and horrors of human trafficking until she managed to escape. Here she recounts her early life and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385526210
• ISBN13: 9780385526210
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
• Length: 193 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.9" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A must read!

A raw and educational life story that will leave you wanting to help the women and children in the sex slave industry.

Only a total of 24 reviews???

This book is not getting enough notice. People need to read this book!!! There should be hundreds of reviews for it, but there's only a total of 24 including reviews for the hardcover as well. Someone needs to market the hell out of this book like RIGHT NOW!!! I have recommended it to all my friends and co-workers, in hopes to just get people to know about the horrors that are happening in Cambodia, and all over the world. This book was an eye-opener into a world that I was completely ignorant about. It's despicable that people exist to have brutal sex with poor innocent young children. Somaly Mam's book details the horrors in graphic detail and really makes you think! THINK!!! Here I am sitting and browsing online book reviews while a dozen innocent young girls are being brutally raped every minute in some filthy brothel in Cambodia or other countries. Is this what the world is coming to? The sex slave trafficking industry is one of the top three earning billions of dollars illegally....yet somehow, all governments are turning a blind eye to it. People like Somaly are trying to their best to help but the situation is just so daunting and out of control, I really don't know if it can ever be stopped or fixed. That's the horrible truth behind it. Young girls as young as 4-years-old are sold into brothels and savagely gang raped over and over again by men who are demons from hell. Pimps torture the poor girls to make them submit and to kill their spirit. People in the US need to seriously sit down and THINK. Quit complaining about what you don't have and how we suffer because of a bad economy. We have it 1000 times better than 99% of the world, yet we want more and we whine and complain. Americans need to educate themselves and not turn a blind eye to the horrors around the world. Ignorance is NOT bliss!!!

The greatest book by the greatest woman. She is brave and strong I have ever seen.

Yes we live in the same world, but diferent country, human race and culture.However, we need the same thing, a peaceful world. She made her own way to make a world peace. Why not we do the same thing?

Devastating story of a woman's rise from a life of abuse to rescue others

The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam is a heart-breaking story of a woman's fight out of slavery and her quest to save others from suffering as she did. Somaly was raised in the forests of Cambodia in a primitive tribe without electricity or running water. Living in the remote jungles, her parents abandoned her and left her with a grandmother who then died before Somaly could remember any of them. She raised herself until the age of eleven, sleeping in a hammock, fishing for some meals, and receiving some little care from the rest of the villagers. At eleven, a man claiming to be her grandfather took her to a larger city and used her as slave labor, beating her and forcing her to work for others as well. She learned how to read at a small school run by a man who claimed to be her uncle and tried to do his weak best by her. At fifteen, her grandfather sold her into a violent marriage with a soldier, until he disappeared, and the grandfather appeared again to sell her into a brothel in Phnom Phen. There Somaly was raped and beaten until all of her will was driven out of her, and the fight to survive overcame the desire to be free. Eventually a French aid worker came to her aid, and Somaly was able to break free of this devastating life. But Somaly is more than the average women. She was unwilling to let other women suffer as she did, so she began distributing condoms to the brothels, and then opened a home to take in girls who fled their life of forced prostitution. She has faced threats, including the kidnapping of one of her daughters, but has emerged unwilling to bend again. Her story is amazing and awful, not something that is easily considered. It's much easier to skim over the details and refuse to internalize them. But when I read about men raping 5 and 6 year old girls and then pimps sewing the girls up again so they can be sold as "virgins", and then look at my own 5-1/2 year old daughter, my heart is broken. I can't imagine the degradation that these girls suffer daily. Somaly tells her story in raw, harsh words. They are not prettied up, nor does she gloss over what she has faced. This book needs to be read to expose the world to the truths about what is going on in Cambodia to these young girls. A portion of the profits from this book go to Somaly's charity that helps free girls from their abuse, and I know that her foundation is one that I will be donating to in the future.

Lifechanging and heartbreaking

Caution: This book is written in a heart-wrenching, raw, unflinching manner and does not shy away from describing some of the horrific abuse that Somaly and countless thousands of other young girls have endured. Though I think it is critical for adults to be shaken out of their comfort zone--and this book has the power to sear one for a lifetime--I would keep this book away from any reader under age 18, unless she was reading it with the constant oversight and guidance of a parent. That said, I think this kind of book--reality--needs to be read far more than fiction which gets far more graphic. This is real life for thousands of little girls. We can't hide from that, and I think we need to be shaken up a bit if such will change the way we view this issue. "She has orchestrated raids on brothels and rescued sex workers, some as young as five and six; she has built shelters, started schools, and founded an organization that has so far saved more than four thousand women and children in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. Her memoir will leave you awestruck by her tenacity and courage and will renew your faith in the power of an individual to bring about change" (From the book synopsis). You will cry, you will shudder, you will feel sick to your stomach if you have the courage to let the truth enter your world. There are consequences to knowing the truth. When we know the truth, God holds us responsible to act on it...to order our lives around it. If you read this book you cannot ignore these girls' need to be rescued and healed. What if it were your little sister or your daughter? Obviously these girls need help. But God does not need any one of us. This post is not an attempted guilt trip to prod readers to help. On the contrary, to be part of the hand of God to these, the least of these is what Christianity is all about (James 1:27) and it is both an honor and a privilege to be involved. I am blessed to be able to help and want as many of you as possible to get that same opportunity.