Fake Testimonies: How the Literary Hoax becomes a Tool for Social and Humanitarian Awareness

Clara Sitbon

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Fake Testimonies: How the Literary Hoax becomes a Tool for Social and Humanitarian Awareness

In: Deception: Spies, Lies and Forgeries

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Clara Sitbon

Clara Sitbon
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 51–58

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848884106_007

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For over twenty years, Somaly Mam, with her foundation, has fought sex trafficking in South East Asia. She was considered a modern heroine idolised by everybody, including Ban Ki Moon, the Pope, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton. Her autobiography, The Road to Innocence, published in 2005, received the Prize of Truth from the Mayor of Cannes, a small French town. Her story is that of a ten year old girl sold by her grandfather to a rich merchant, then forced to marry a violent soldier at the age of fourteen, before being sold to a brothel where she would be beaten, raped, and tortured. A symbol of several generations of abused women, Somaly Mam confirmed her status as martyr with this piece of literary work that would end up being translated into over twelve languages by 2008. In 2014, a Newsweek Investigation let by Simon Marks revealed that Somaly Mam’s story was completely invented, that she did not grow up in the remote mountains of North Cambodia as she had pretended, and more importantly, it revealed that she went to school until she graduated with a teaching degree. My paper intends to prove how this investigation changed the status of the fake testimony to a pure literary hoax. It also discusses then how this fake testimony brings the literary hoax to the social sphere by focusing on the humanitarian issue of sex trafficking.

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Deception: Spies, Lies and Forgeries

E-Book ISBN:: 9781848884106

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2016

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Fake Testimonies: How the Literary Hoax becomes a Tool for Social and Humanitarian Awareness

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Deception: Spies, Lies and Forgeries

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