More Kristof

It seems that Nic Kristof was more than a dupe of Somaly Mam’s lies. Sounds like he was complicit to a significant degree:

Many of her accolades, in turn, can be traced back to her friendship with New York Times columnist Nick Kristof. As of press time he still lists the Somaly Mam Foundation as a “partner” in Half the Sky Movement, his blatant attempt (along with wife Sheryl WuDunn) to brand and therefore profit from economic and physical violence against women and girls in the Global South. He also has yet to account for his inclusion of discredited statements by a Mam foundation “rescuee” in either the 2009 book or 2012 “documentary” “Half the Sky.” And Kristof’s live-tweeting of their brothel raid appears to violate the U.N. Conventions on the Rights of the Child, and his purchase of two “sex slaves” for media purposes is not condoned by Cambodian Human Trafficking Law.

Kristof may, eventually, claim to have been duped. I believe he’ll be lying (again), although other folks who are not Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters may be more sincere. The alleged falsehoods in Mam’s biography, debunked by eyewitnesses but upheld by her organization — which Marks deserves kudos for tracking, and which the mainstream press should be shamed for failing to pick up on earlier — are troubling: Her own childhood exploitation, accounts of her daughter’s kidnapping by pro-trafficking thugs, and young women’s stories of rape and abuse often go unverified or unchallenged in Cambodia, yet are so oft repeated abroad as to give the semblance of truth. Unfortunately, these are lies many have profited from, including right-wing Christian fundamentalist NGOs, which have used the mantle of human trafficking to promote agendas that are clearly unrelated, like abstinence education in U.S. schools and religious instruction in Buddhist or Muslim areas abroad.

He has a lot of explaining to do.