This is a rush transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” November 8, 2007. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This girl?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It could take five years to reinterpret her into society and save her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You’ve been here too long. These aren’t your people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m going to take her back with me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go home.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: That’s a clip from the newly released film “Holly,” which is described as harsh yet poetic. This feature was dedicated to raising awareness of child trafficking in the sex slavery trade in places like Cambodia.
Joining us now are two key supporters of this film and its message: Somaly Mam. She’s a former sex slave herself and now an activist for the cause.
Also with us is activist and actress Daryl Hannah.
Welcome to you both. Thanks so much for being here.
DARYL HANNAH, ACTRESS/ACTIVIST: Thank you.
COLMES: You know, this movie, which involves a 12- year-old Vietnamese girl sold into slavery and smuggled across the border, but it’s — this actually happened. The idea that — this seems like fiction.
HANNAH: Oh, it happens. Not only does it actually happen. There are more slaves now than any other time in human history.
COLMES: I didn’t realize, in researching this, and looking into your background as an activist and actress that you yourself at the age of 17 came close to being in a similar situation.
HANNAH: I think it’s, unfortunately, very easy to fool girls into a kind of trafficking situation because people are — you know, they’re preying on hope, really. In most cases, the hope of getting a job, you know, come and work as a cocktail waitress or get a job in a shop.
But very often it’s also little children that are being kidnapped, being tricked by their parents, those kinds of things.
COLMES: Before we talk to Somaly about what she’s doing to help correct this, what happened to you? How did you somehow come close to something like this?
HANNAH: Um, I — it was just I was sort of in a situation where they thought that I was a runaway kid. And so…
COLMES: And you escaped? You, like, jumped out of a window.
HANNAH: I did. I jumped out a window, unfortunately. I kind of got the idea that it wasn’t a copacetic situation. I got out of it.
COLMES: Somaly, what are you doing now as a former person in this kind of situation yourself? You are working hard now by creating shelters. To help runways like this who get into the sex slave trade.
SOMALY MAM, FORMER SEX SLAVE: Yes. We have — we have three operatives. One is rescue. We get them from (UNINTELLIGIBLE) . And then rehabilitation. And then reintegration.
COLMES: Uh-huh.
Yes. So I think that we have a short time to explain. If the people they want to know, they just go to Somaly.org and then…
HANNAH: Somaly.org. Yes.
MAM: And then you’ll see all of my activities.
COLMES: All of what you’re doing to help correct this horrible situation.
MAM: Yes.
COLMES: People don’t realize, too, is the girls who try to escape from this, they are subject to being drugged, to be burned with cigarettes.
HANNAH: Oh. Yes.
COLMES: The girls who, once they realize they’re in a bad situation and try to escape, what — what goes on?
HANNAH: Yes. I mean, it’s horrifying. I mean, girls kept in cages, all kinds of tortures and things. I mean, basically, the thing is, we need to raise awareness that this is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world and we have to start enforcing laws to stop it.
COLMES: What’s amazing is in parts of the world where families are sometimes so poor and the parents, actually, are aware that they are selling their kids into what becomes prostitution and slavery and will take the money.
HANNAH: Yes. Sometimes it’s to save their other children, though. You know, sometimes they have to make that “Sophie’s Choice” and say, “OK, well, I will, you know, pay off his debt with this child and try to save my other child.” Or, you know, it’s a terrible, terrible situation, and it’s worldwide and it’s in epidemic proportions right now.
And Somaly has got the most unbelievable shelters because it’s actually being run by a former victim for victims. They do rescue. They do rehabilitation. They do reintegration. It’s a fantastic, fantastic organization and they need support.
COLMES: Thanks, both of you for being here with us. Thank you for your work on this issue. We’re all in your debt. And this is just a terrible scourge.
Somaly, can you tell us a little bit about your experience, what happened to you? You believe you were sold when you are 8 or 9 years old. Is that correct?
MAM: Yes. I think my life is not like other lives, you know — I have been born, I don’t know my name, exactly.
COLMES: You don’t know your name?
MAM: I don’t know my name. I don’t know my parents. I don’t know who I am. It’s so difficult. And I was sold by the man, and he say that he’s my grandfather. But you know that in Cambodia, the way to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the people and just to be a slave in his house.
So he just bring me to — to find money for him and just sold me in the — first of all it’s not a brothel and but in the Chinese guy.
COLMES: Did your grandfather know the people he was selling you to or did he just go out and find someone and take the money and leave?
MAM: I don’t know. I don’t have idea. You know, I have no idea. As a woman and as a girl, I didn’t have the right to ask him. And I didn’t have a right to know nothing. I had the right to accept everything that he said to me, and this happened to all the girls in our shelter.
When their parents sell them to the brothel they accepted because it’s a kind of sacrificed life for them. But what I want everyone to know that to be victim, you’re a victim all your life. It’s like my life. I cannot sleep. You know, how I can say, my life is dead — when I was first raped.
COLMES: How um…
MAM: What I want just help the girls, the victims. I don’t want them to have suffering, because I know these problems.
COLMES: Well, God bless you, because you’re taking something terrible and very evil and making something good out of it. And that’s an extraordinary thing. How did you escape? How did you get out of it?
MAM: How did I escape it? Up to 4 years 5 years in the brothel, and for the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) people think I’m not so beautiful so they let me, they let me out. Yes.
COLMES: We thank you both very, very much. You had a debut at the U.N. last night of your film.
HANNAH: Yes of Somaly Mam’s Foundation.
COLMES: A very important film. The Web site is Somaly.org. Right?
MAM: Yes.
COLMES: We thank you both very much for being here with us tonight.
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